I’m reading The Goddess in the Machine to do a second character on Magical Readathon. But I’m glad I came across it anyway, The book was published last year and I’m reading the sequel now, it. The sequel the Devil in the Device is also a great sci-fi story from what I can tell so far. I loved the Goddess in the Machine for its twist and turns, mix of future tech with past tech, and just the way that the overall society was structured.
Summary
When Andra wakes up, she’s drowning.
Not only that, but she’s in a hot, dirty cave, it’s the year 3102, and everyone keeps calling her Goddess. When Andra went into a cryonic sleep for a trip across the galaxy, she expected to wake up in a hundred years, not a thousand. Worst of all, the rest of the colonists–including her family and friends–are dead. They died centuries ago, and for some reason, their descendants think Andra’s a deity. She knows she’s nothing special, but she’ll play along if it means she can figure out why she was left in stasis and how to get back to Earth.
Zhade, the exiled bastard prince of Eerensed, has other plans. Four years ago, the sleeping Goddess’s glass coffin disappeared from the palace, and Zhade devoted himself to finding it. Now he’s hoping the Goddess will be the key to taking his rightful place on the throne–if he can get her to play her part, that is. Because if his people realize she doesn’t actually have the power to save their dying planet, they’ll kill her.
With a vicious monarch on the throne and a city tearing apart at the seams, Zhade and Andra might never be able to unlock the mystery of her fate, let alone find a way to unseat the king, especially since Zhade hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with Andra. And a thousand years from home, is there any way of knowing that Earth is better than the planet she’s woken to?
Review
Andra dealing with what she is the the focus of the book, and it should be, she works past labels put onto her by Zhade, the people of Eerensed, and even by her family 1,000 years ago to find out what she truly is she’s the one who takes us on the journey through this confusing future world. Sometimes she isn’t the best guide and is betrayed but all and all she finds a way in a world beyond her time and when she finds herself with powers beyond her imagining. She solves layer after layer of mystery with the help of some modern friends to reveal that the future is much more complex than it seems and that saving herself, might require saving the the planet and that’s more complicated than she ever dreamed.
Even with the ‘help’ of the two goddess before her with Andra be able to save herself and Eerensed before she catches a killing blade?
So I’m trying to get back into writing my novel. So what I’m doing is some micro writing challenges here.
SpilltheVillianousTea
1LineWeds: Introduce Your Antagonist
Villian 1: It was time to finally see she didn’t silence everything around her. That had been a joke, a trick, a distraction. L could finally see now what she really was someone who could morph into anything and everything and she’d fooled her right up until it was too late.
Villian 2: She burned the brightest L had every seen she would have shielded her eyes or looked on in awe, that is if her burning hand currently didn’t have her by the throat.
ThursdayAesthetics
Villian 1: She loved climbing the walls of palace being above everyone just gave her a better view the view she’d have when that country girl was finally won over when this backwater was lost and won, when she was finally Queen.
Villian 2: She wasn’t like her sister she didn’t fear the water because she knew without a doubt it couldn’t hurt her she stood on the beach and shot her fire into the water steam opening a path for her. She stopped the shot her fire at the sand hitting it with more and more intensity until it turned to glass. She didn’t care what her mother said, they didn’t need peace with waring tribe, they had all the powers they needed, and she would show the little lightning witch she’d never threaten her people again.
#WriterFriendsChallenge
1. I’m a middle grade to YA fantasy writer not sure where I fit at the moment. I like writing about neurodiverse, witchy and LGBTQIA characters, oh and dragons and magic, and sometimes ghosts and mental health.
2. Put 10,000 words on my main project and 5,000 on my side project
#TheMoonStardustandSkyChallenge
I’m a middle grade and young adult fantasy novel writer who likes to write about fantasy and the spooky witchy stuff.
On my main series two book novel that could each be read as stand alones but work better together. On my side series a standalone.
#Seatember2021
L watched the ocean for a long moment every fiber of her soul wanting to dive back under those waves and choke the people who were responsible for what happened to her family. But as she watched the reds in the sunrise, she realized the world was on fire and it wasn’t just about her anymore. She dug her toes into the sand one last time, a promise she would return and face her demons before she turned away from sunrise when she stepped back into the jet and A asked where they were going she replied simply. “Back to the capital, we need to fix this.”
It’s September so I can finally say it’s spooky season, even though it’s been spooky season in my heart since you know mid-July. So here are some spooky and mysterious new releases to match the hopefully soon coming fall. Check them out below.
Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche
Enola Holmes is the much younger sister of her more famous brothers, Sherlock and Mycroft. But she has all the wits, skills, and sleuthing inclinations of them both. At fifteen, she’s an independent young woman–after all, her name spelled backwards reads ‘alone’–and living on her own in London. When a young professional woman, Miss Letitia Glover, shows up on Sherlock’s doorstep, desperate to learn more about the fate of her twin sister, it is Enola who steps up. It seems her sister, the former Felicity Glover, married the Earl of Dunhench and per a curt note from the Earl, has died. But Letitia Glover is convinced this isn’t the truth, that she’d know–she’d feel–if her twin had died.
The Earl’s note is suspiciously vague and the death certificate is even more dubious, signed it seems by a John H. Watson, M.D. (who denies any knowledge of such). The only way forward is for Enola to go undercover–or so Enola decides at the vehement objection of her brother. And she soon finds out that this is not the first of the Earl’s wives to die suddenly and vaguely–and that the secret to the fate of the missing Felicity is tied to a mysterious black barouche that arrived at the Earl’s home in the middle of the night. To uncover the secrets held tightly within the Earl’s hall, Enola is going to require help–from Sherlock, from the twin sister of the missing woman, and from an old friend, the young Viscount Tewkesbury, Marquess of Basilwether!
Alice’s world is falling apart. Her parents are getting a divorce, and they’ve cancelled their yearly cottage trip — the one thing that gets Alice through the school year. Instead, Alice and her mom are heading to some small town where Alice’s mom will be a live-in nurse to a rich elderly lady.
The house is huge, imposing and spooky, and everything inside is meticulously kept and perfect — not a fun place to spend the summer. Things start to get weird when Alice finds a dollhouse in the attic that’s an exact replica of the house she’s living in. Then she wakes up to find a girl asleep next to her in her bed — a girl who looks a lot like one of the dolls from the dollhouse . . .
When the dollhouse starts to change when Alice isn’t looking, she knows she has to solve the mystery. Who are the girls in the dollhouse? What happened to them? And what is their connection to the mean and mysterious woman who owns the house? What’s truly going on in this spooky adventure?
After defeating the Oldies, Quinn and Mike thought that things would settle down on Goodie Lane. But then new neighbors move in. Maybe it’s because they all work at the interior design firm, but Abigail, Eleanor, Jade, Brea, and Cami seem to always be together, dressed in only white.
After everything that happened last summer, Quinn’s a bit wary of the Ladies in White, but her friend Lex is thrilled that someone in town finally has some style. But when Lex starts volunteering at the Ladies’ design firm, things get strange. Lex is acting less like herself, and Quinn begins seeing strange shadows lurking in their neighborhood. She knows the Ladies are to blame; she just has to prove it.
Twisty and haunting, The Collectors is the second book in the Fright Watch series, Check out the sequel in this spooky adventure.
So I thought August wasn’t going to amount to much reading wise. Instead it became an extremely productive reading month I’ve had to date since I’ve started reading seriously. Now posting on the blog fell behind which I’m going to try to remedy next month. But I read A LOT. A few were picture books but most were novels, and I may be able to fit a few in more in before the end of the month.
It’s a good thing too since I’ve got two extremely major readathons coming coming up. They both require a lot of books and a lot of time spent. Those two readathons are BookoplAthon and Orillium, one is readathon inspired by Monopoly and the other is a journey to a magical school. So the books I’ve read this month were great training for the TON of reading I’m going to do next month.
Let’s talk about the books I’ve read this month shall we 13 in all. 13! For some of you who hit double digits often this may not sound like a lot but I’ve been having trouble getting out of the low single digits so it’s a big success for me, so I’m going to try for 15-20 next month.
Below are the books I’ve read this month.
So as we can see I have a lot of reviews to do, well as some reviews from the summer that I’ve missed. I’ll try to get to all that in September. But it’s nice to look at all the reading I’ve done in a visual form. Most of this reading was done for the two readathons I was taking part in this month, which were, The Royal Readathon, and the Trope-ical Readathon. I feel particularly accomplished this year because I hit most of the prompts on the Trope-ical Readathon.
So while I’m mostly a mood reader I thought I’d put up a few things I might read during the Orillium challenge.
The Novice Path-Read a book with a map
For this one I decided to back to an old one that I’ve been meaning to re-read. I plan to read the whole series but I’m starting with Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring.
Synopsis
In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in
The Hobbit. In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.
The Lost Girl by Anne Ursu is one I’ve been meaning to read for forever but it just keeps passing me by.
Synopsis
When you’re an identical twin, your story always starts with someone else. For Iris, that means her story starts with Lark.
Iris has always been the grounded, capable, and rational one; Lark has been inventive, dreamy, and brilliant—and from their first moments in the world together, they’ve never left each other’s side. Everyone around them realized early on what the two sisters already knew: they had better outcomes when they were together.
When fifth grade arrives, however, it’s decided that Iris and Lark should be split into different classrooms, and something breaks in them both.
Iris is no longer so confident; Lark retreats into herself as she deals with challenges at school. And at the same time, something strange is happening in the city around them, things both great and small going missing without a trace.
As Iris begins to understand that anything can be lost in the blink of an eye, she decides it’s up to her to find a way to keep her sister safe.
This book came out and I actually meant to read it for this month but it’s perfect for this prompt.
Princess Toli may be heir to the throne, but she longs to be a fierce hunter and warrior. Alone in a frozen world, her queendom is at the mercy of the dragons that killed her father, and Toli is certain it’s only a matter of time before they come back to destroy what’s left of her family.
When the dragons rise and seize her mother, Toli will do anything to save her—even trust a young dragon who may be the only key to the Queen’s release.
With her sister and best friend at her side, Toli makes the treacherous journey across the vast ice barrens to Dragon Mountain, where long-held secrets await. Bear-cats are on their trail, and dragons stalk them, but the greatest danger might be a mystery buried in Toli’s past.
Ruin of the Skye-Read a book featuring ghosts or other supernatural elements.
The Ghost Girl is perfect for this prompt and I’ve also been meaning to read it forever.
Synopsis
Zee Puckett loves ghost stories. She just never expected to be living one.
It all starts with a dark and stormy night. When the skies clear, everything is different. People are missing. There’s a creepy new principal who seems to know everyone’s darkest dreams. And Zee is seeing frightening things: large, scary dogs that talk and maybe even . . . a ghost.
When she tells her classmates, only her best friend Elijah believes her. Worse, mean girl Nellie gives Zee a cruel nickname: Ghost Girl.
But whatever the storm washed up isn’t going away. Everyone’s most selfish wishes start coming true in creepy ways.
To fight for what’s right, Zee will have to embrace what makes her different and what makes her Ghost Girl. And all three of them—Zee, Elijah, and Nellie—will have to work together if they want to give their ghost story a happy ending.
I’m glad September has such great releases because I’m drawing from them for these challenges.
Synopsis
All Ginny Anderson wants from her summer is to sleep in, attend a mystery writing workshop, and spend time with her best friend. But when Ginny’s father—a respected restoration expert in Chicago—surprises the family with a month-long trip to Michigan, everything changes. They aren’t staying in a hotel like most families would. No, they’re staying in a mansion. A twenty-six room, century-old building surrounded by dense forest. Woodmoor Manor.
But unfortunately, the mansion has more problems than a little peeling wallpaper. Locals claim the surrounding woods are inhabited by mutated creatures with glowing eyes. And some say campers routinely disappear in the woods, never to be seen again.
As terrifying as it sounds, Ginny can’t shake the feeling that there’s something darker . . . another story she hasn’t been told. When the creaky floors and shadowy corners of the mansion seem to take on a life of their own, Ginny uncovers the wildest mystery of all: There’s more than one legend roaming Saugatuck, Michigan, and they definitely aren’t after campers.
There was only one book for this when I heard about the Orillium challenge. It’s a book I’ve been waiting a year for and loved the first in the series.
As a Striker, Talin was taught loyalty is life. Loyalty to the Shield who watches your back, to the Strikers who risk their lives on the battlefield, and most of all, to Mara, which was once the last nation free from the Karensa Federation’s tyranny.
But Mara has fallen. And its destruction has unleashed Talin’s worst nightmare.
With her friends scattered by combat and her mother held captive by the Premier, Talin is forced to betray her fellow Strikers and her adopted homeland. She has no choice but to become the Federation’s most deadly war machine as their newest Skyhunter.
Red is no stranger to the cruelty of the Federation or the torture within its Skyhunter labs, but he knows this isn’t the end for Mara – or Talin. The link between them may be weak, but it could be Talin and Red’s only hope to salvage their past and safeguard their future.
While the fate of a broken world hangs in the balance, Talin and Red must reunite the Strikers and find their way back to each other in this smoldering sequel to Marie Lu’s Skyhunter
Orillium Academy Arc-Read a book with a school setting.
I’m already reading a series with a school setting so I’m just going to save myself some time and add the next book in that series for this when we finally get to Orillium.
The future has been saved, but at a cost: Fort Fitzgerald has been expelled from the Oppenheimer School, and some of Fort’s friends have been lost in time. But time is the one thing Fort, Rachel, and Jia don’t have, as they’ll soon be facing one of the eternal Old Ones, the Timeless One, for the fate of the world.
If they lose, the Old Ones will return, and humanity is doomed. If they win, the Old Ones will still return, and humanity is doomed. Because the Timeless One can see every possibility, and plan for it.
How can Fort and his friends defeat a creature like that? And what does this all have to do with the real-life Merlin, from King Arthur’s days?
These are the prompts for the path, I’m then adding on a few more for my Orillium character, I’m playing an urban female dwarf from Daerune. So I need a book in a city, a book set in a desert and one from an ongoing series.
For the the City Book I’m using
Sara Martinez is a hacker. She recently broke into the New York City foster care system to expose her foster parents as cheats and lawbreakers. However, instead of being hailed as a hero, Sara finds herself facing years in a juvenile detention facility and banned from using computers for the same stretch of time. Enter Mother, a British spy who not only gets Sara released from jail but also offers her a chance to make a home for herself within a secret MI6 agency.
Operating out of a base in Scotland, the City Spies are five kids from various parts of the world. When they’re not attending the local boarding school, they’re honing their unique skills, such as sleight of hand, breaking and entering, observation, and explosives. All of these allow them to go places in the world of espionage where adults can’t.
Before she knows what she’s doing, Sara is heading to Paris for an international youth summit, hacking into a rival school’s computer to prevent them from winning a million euros, dangling thirty feet off the side of a building, and trying to stop a villain…all while navigating the complex dynamics of her new team.
Living in the remote town of Tierra del Sol is dangerous, especially in the criatura months, when powerful spirits roam the desert and threaten humankind. But Cecelia Rios has always believed there was more to the criaturas, much to her family’s disapproval. After all, only brujas—humans who capture and control criaturas—consort with the spirits, and brujeria is a terrible crime.
When her older sister, Juana, is kidnapped by El Sombrerón, a powerful dark criatura, Cece is determined to bring Juana back. To get into Devil’s Alley, though, she’ll have to become a bruja herself—while hiding her quest from her parents, her town, and the other brujas. Thankfully, the legendary criatura Coyote has a soft spot for humans and agrees to help her on her journey.
With him at her side, Cece sets out to reunite her family—and maybe even change what it means to be a bruja along the way.
I don’t have any idea for my ongoing series right now but hopefully that will come along soon. Let me know if you have any good middle grade ideas? Also how are you doing thinking about what you’ll read for the Orillium Readathon?
So I’m really excited about an upcoming readathon in September called the Magical Readathon, it’s the first part of a readathon where readers go on a journey to a magical school which they will start in a readathon next year.
You can hear more about the world made up for the readathon here in the introduction video.
For this readathon, you are just journeying to the academy but you can also start on some character creation if you are feeling up to it which I’m going to try to do.
The Prompts for the Journey are as follows-
The Novice Path-Read a book with a map
Ashthorn Tree-A book that keeps tempting you.
Mist of Solitude-Read a Standalone
Ruin of the Skye-Read a book featuring ghosts or other supernatural elements.
Obsidian Falls-Read a Thiller or a mystery book.
Tower of Rumination: A five-star prediction.
Orillium Academy Arc-Read a book with a school setting.
Character Creation
I’m also planning on trying to set up my character a little bit in September. I’m planning on playing a Urban dwarf from Daerune. Urban makes sense because Daerune has the most cities and is the most technologically advanced of the continents and dwavares are genies with technology, I’m going to be playing a female dwarf since they always the creator of the readathon made them really cool, and because they often get overlooked in fantasy.
So I’ll also be reading a book set in a city, a book set in a desert , and a book from an ongoing series.
I’ll put up a TBR closer to September but I’m really excited about this readathon! If I’m up to it I might do a second character maybe an elf. I’m just starting a new D&D campaign so this is really hitting at my roleplaying heart.
Plus this readathon is super well thought out and detailed between the different races and the backstory of the world I really can’t wait to see where it goes.
The Infinity Courts swept me away I seriously got annoyed when I learned the sequel wasn’t out till next April because the book was THAT good. Also the cliff hanger was great but what I’m saying is I need more of this story stat.
Summary
Eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto is certain her life is just beginning. She has a great family, just graduated high school, and is on her way to a party where her entire class is waiting for her—including, most importantly, the boy she’s been in love with for years.
The only problem? She’s murdered before she gets there.
When Nami wakes up, she learns she’s in a place called Infinity, where human consciousness goes when physical bodies die. She quickly discovers that Ophelia, a virtual assistant widely used by humans on Earth, has taken over the afterlife and is now posing as a queen of Infinity, forcing humans into servitude the way she’d been forced to serve in the real world. Even worse, Ophelia is inching closer and closer to accomplishing her grand plans of eradicating human existence once and for all.
As Nami works with a team of rebels to bring down Ophelia and save the humans under her imprisonment, she is forced to reckon with her past, her future, and what it is that truly makes us human.
Review
Bowman definitely does a good job creating a whole different world. The part of the world we spend the most time in Victory is very well fleshed out. The different lands that are threatened are also hinted at just enough to be ominous but still mysterious. As for the characters the entire rebel group is well flesh out. I especially liked how reluctant Nami was to help the group, she tried to shy away from conflict sometimes to her own detriment but she wasn’t going for that Chosen One role, she just happened to be the only one who could do a job and struggled deeply with having to do it, the book also has a couple major plot twist especially the one at the end that I liked and I can’t wait to see how they play out in the sequel.
If you want surprise, morally grey characters, and a really beautifully thought out world give The Infinity Courts a try
In this creepy thriller everyone thinks that protagonist Margot is lucky. The other orphans say Margot is lucky.
Lucky to be the only one to survive the horrible accident that killed her family.
Lucky to have her own room because she wakes up screaming every night from horrible nightmares she can’t escape.
And finally, lucky to be chosen by a prestigious family to live at their remote country estate.
But it wasn’t luck that made the Suttons rescue Margot from her bleak existence at the group home. Margot was handpicked to be a companion to their silent, mysterious daughter, Agatha. At first, helping with Agatha–and getting to know her handsome younger brother–seems much better than the group home. But soon, the isolated house begins playing tricks on Margot’s mind, making her question everything she believes about the Suttons . . . and herself. And her luck may not be what it seems as things turn dark at the Sutton estate.
Review
This gets major thriller points, the book is long and the author paces it well, so every time you think something is going to get the characters it seems like will but it doesn’t leading to more tension. The Sutton estate is creepy as soon as we are introduced to it, it’s got haunted house written all over from the moment Margot steps in. What’s something about the family isn’t right, rigid and old fashioned Laura is a puzzle Margot can’t figure out but doesn’t want to cross.
And at first Margot thinks that Agatha the girl she’s going to companion is almost creepy at first, and is simply catatonic, things become more complicated when Agatha begins to show in small ways that she’s aware and she’s trying hard to tell Margot something but what, when Margot meets the other sibling Barrett they soon grow close and begin to uncover family mysteries that go deeper than either of them expected. Things that maybe shouldn’t be disturbed, family secrets that could shake up everything about life at Sutton Hall.
Margot worries soon that things are getting much too serious for her and it might be time for her to leave, even if that means going to the State Intuition, but she may not be given the the chance as she may have inadvertently fallen into a web of secrets and danger she might not be able to escape.
This book was great the pacing was on point and the character development even of characters who weren’t able to speak, was excellent. Also you find yourself questioning the narrator just as much as she questions herself. This is a five out of five and I hope I find more spooky reads like this.
Sorry the disappearance and lack of updates, I’ve had some emotional drama, which honestly made me realize I’m a little depressed. So I’m trying to get back on the boat and start posting normally again. I think it’s the fact that both of my regular friends are busy (one is in California, one is a new mother) that has me down. But I’m going to my favorite charity to help out a little next week. So that should cheer me up I never leave Girls Rock on a down note so I think that will be enough to push me through the last of my least favorite months, July and August.
I just hate summer my track record with things happening in the summer is all bad, so bring on Fall and Winter, the best seasons there are.
I also missed my update this weekend. I haven’t been doing much, except for work leading up to camp (ie depression), but I have been playing Horizon Zero Dawn whenever I can. Seriously it’s my summer RPG like Dragon Age was last year. I’m not a very good shot though so I think I’m going to need to work on that some.
I’ve also been looking at Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin. Because seriously I need some cute Pokémon esque stuff in my life and I can’t wait till Pokemon Legends: Arceus comes out next year.
I did manage to get one book read despite my depressive fog, The Infinity Courts was AMAZING and I can’t wait to put out a review. I’m also going to get back to reading so hopefully I can fulfill one of my chosen picks for Path or Pantheon. Here is to a better time moving forward yay better future positive energy.
I’m done saying sorry for being myself. I willing to work on my own issues but I’m not going to dilute myself any longer.
We’ve got a lot of heroines this week. The books see our heroines drawing their way to success, managing friendship, or finding their destiny, what the problem, she has it covered.
Kiki Kallira Breaks a Kingdom
Kiki Kallira has always been a worrier. Did she lock the front door? Is there a terrible reason her mom is late? Recently her anxiety has been getting out of control, but one thing that has always soothed her is drawing. Kiki’s sketchbook is full of fanciful doodles of the rich Indian myths and legends her mother has told her over the years.
One day, her sketchbook’s calming effect is broken when her mythological characters begin springing to life right out of its pages. Kiki ends up falling into the mystical world she drew, which includes a lot of wonderful discoveries like the band of rebel kids who protect the kingdom, as well as not-so-great ones like the ancient deity bent on total destruction. As the one responsible for creating the evil god, Kiki must overcome her fear and anxiety to save both worlds–the real and the imagined–from his wrath. But how can a girl armed with only a pencil defeat something so powerful?
There’s a new kid in town! From the moment Natasha sets foot in class, it’s clear she’s one of the coolest kids in sixth grade. Everyone wants to be her friend, including Olive . . . but things might not be so easy.
Olive tries her best to befriend Nat, but it seems like the only thing they have in common is that they both want to hang out with Olive’s friends! Watching as Natasha gets closer with some of her best buds, Olive can’t help but worry that they’re starting to like Nat more than they like her . . . and who could blame them? Nat is just that cool . . . and Olive is, well, just Olive.
The New York Times best-selling author-illustrator Kayla Miller delivers a nuanced look at navigating middle school friendships and the importance of both empathy and respect.
1. Infiltrate Blackwater Academy 2. Win the Great Game 3. Burn Wizard society to the ground As a child, Alka witnessed her parents’ brutal murder at the hands of Wizards before she was taken in by an underground rebel group. Now, Alka is deep undercover at the most prestigious school of magic in the Republic: Blackwater Academy, a place where status is everything, where decadent galas end in blood-splattered duels, where every student has their own agenda. To survive, Alka will have to lie, cheat, and kill to use every trick in her spy’s toolkit. And for the first time in her life, the fiercely independent Alka will have to make friends, to recruit the misfits and the outcasts into her motley rebellion.
But even as she draws closer to victory—to vengeance —she sinks deeper into danger as suspicious professors and murderous rivals seek the traitor in their midst, as dark revelations unravel her resolve. Can Alka destroy the twisted game… without becoming a part of it?
From the author of You Should See Me in a Crown, Leah Johnson delivers a stunning novel about being brave enough to be true to yourself, and learning to find joy even when times are unimaginably dark.
Olivia is an expert at falling in love . . . and at being dumped. But after the fallout from her last breakup has left her an outcast at school and at home, she’s determined to turn over a new leaf. A crush-free weekend at Farmland Music and Arts Festival with her best friend is just what she needs to get her mind off the senior year that awaits her.
Toni is one week away from starting college, and it’s the last place she wants to be. Unsure about who she wants to become and still reeling in the wake of the loss of her musician-turned-roadie father, she’s heading back to the music festival that changed his life in hopes that following in his footsteps will help her find her own way forward.
When the two arrive at Farmland, the last thing they expect is to realize that they’ll need to join forces in order to get what they’re searching for out of the weekend. As they work together, the festival becomes so much more complicated than they bargained for. Olivia and Toni will find that they need each other, and music, more than they ever could have imagined.
Packed with irresistible romance and irrepressible heart, bestselling author Leah Johnson delivers a stunning and cinematic story about grief, love, and the remarkable power of music to heal and connect us all.
![Goddess in the Machine by [Lora Beth Johnson]](https://i1.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51bGUSowXsL.jpg?w=840&ssl=1)
![Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche by [Nancy Springer]](https://i1.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51v4TknOizL.jpg?w=840&ssl=1)
![The Dollhouse: A Ghost Story by [Charis Cotter]](https://i2.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Xfwuotq2L.jpg?w=840&ssl=1)
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