The setting, which brought ancient Pompei to life as a
vibrant, dangerous city; the immersive plot, which kept me reading when I
should have been doing many other things…
Most of all, though, the characters,
Amara and her fellow she-wolves (Pompeian slang for prostitutes) are loyal, inventive, and strong, even in the dreadful circumstances they have to endure.
I
felt utterly involved in their lives and struggles and terrified about what
might happen to them, all the way to the very last page. I’m saving the other
two books in the trilogy, even though I want to gulp them down because I don’t
want to run out of story and have to leave them behind.
Sold by her mother. Enslaved in Pompeii's brothel. Determined to survive. Her name is Amara. Welcome to the Wolf Den...
Amara was once a beloved daughter, until her father's death plunged her family into penury. Now she is a slave in Pompeii's infamous brothel, owned by a man she despises. Sharp, clever and resourceful, Amara is forced to hide her talents. For as a she-wolf, her only value lies in the desire she can stir in others.
But Amara's spirit is far from broken.
By day, she walks the streets with her fellow she-wolves, finding comfort in the laughter and…
Maddie,
a pilot, and Verity, an SOE agent, are two girls from very different
pre-war lives who forge a deep friendship during World War II.
Verity has been
captured and, while being interrogated in France, is forced to write a
confession. Into this, she weaves the story of how she and Maddie came to know
each other. Maddie’s version of events comes later in the book and provides a different reading of what happened. To say more would involve spoilers, so I won’t go any further.
I was gripped by the plotting – Verity is
under a death sentence – and by the vivid writing: two young women pouring
their all onto the pages. It’s a harrowing read at times, thrilling, beautiful, and heartbreaking. And it’s the first book that’s made me cry for a
very long time.
'I have two weeks. You'll shoot me at the end no matter what I do.'
Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, Code Name Verity is a bestselling tale of friendship and courage set against the backdrop of World War Two.
Only in wartime could a stalwart lass from Manchester rub shoulders with a Scottish aristocrat, one a pilot, the other a special operations executive. When a vital mission goes wrong, and one of the friends has to bail out of a faulty plane over France, she is captured by the Gestapo and becomes a prisoner of war. The story begins in…
OMG, this book is such fun! I love fantasy, but there's
only so many times you can read about someone saving the world… sometimes it's good
to have a smaller focus.
Emily Wilde is an intrepid Victorian academic, and the
book is her research diary (complete with footnotes) of a field trip to the
village of Hrafnsvik to catalogue the
local faeries.
I loved Emily's spiky character – she's not very good with
normal people – and the slow development of her relationship with Wendell
Bambleby, who she suspects of wanting to steal her research.
The writing is
lovely, both humorous and lyrical, and I love how unaware Emily is of how other
people see her. I'm delighted to find she will be continuing her research in
another book.
I'm never too sure about the term "cosy fantasy," so let's call
this one "fun fantasy"!
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A curmudgeonly professor journeys to a small town in the far north to study faerie folklore and discovers dark fae magic, friendship, and love in the start of a heartwarming and enchanting new fantasy series.
“A darkly gorgeous fantasy that sparkles with snow and magic.”—Sangu Mandanna, author of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches
Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is…
Nyssa is a teenage orphan haunted by dreams of
someone else’s life.
The arrival of strangers on the quiet island she calls
home hurls her into danger.
Why are they hunting her? Why is the despotic
Alaric so keen to track her down? She must journey to the drowned city of Thira
to find answers about herself, her past – and the twin she’s never known but
whose frightening life she dreams of. What is written on their skin in secret
tattoos, and why does Alaric want it so badly?
