I love a good fairy talereinvention, a unique spin on a familiar story. In this novel, Stephen King blends countless elements of classic fairy tales, including giants, a mermaid, and a talking horse — just to name a few — and seamlessly weaves them into an unlikely hero’s journey through a parallel world.
But in typical King fashion, this story isn’t a glittery Disney remake. Fairy Tale is set in a dark, gritty world with a horrible, disfiguring curse looming over a haunted kingdom.
The first third of the book is a slow burn, but the writing is so sharp and the characters so vivid, when the plot started jolting forward, my well-established connection to the characters made the hero’s impossible journey feel even more perilous.
A #1 New York Times Bestseller and New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice!
Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for that world or ours.
Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was seven, and grief drove his dad…
Even though it’s set in the same universe as Bardugo’s Shadow & Bone trilogy, Six of Crows tells a very different story. I am a massive fan of Bardugo’s ability to blend humor, romance, and danger with sharp dialogue and intriguing characters, and Six of Crows did not disappoint.
It features a gang of six outcasts who tell their story from five perspectives, with interspersing flashbacks throughout. No small undertaking for an epic crime heist, but Bardugo does it effortlessly.
The tale takes place in an alternate Amsterdam where dark magic and the criminal underground try to subvert the team of jaded, generally unlikeable characters who you’ll find yourself missing after the final page.
*See the Grishaverse come to life on screen with Shadow and Bone, now a Netflix original series.*
Nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2017, this fantasy epic from the No. 1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of the Grisha trilogy is gripping, sweeping and memorable - perfect for fans of George R. R. Martin, Laini Taylor and Kristin Cashore.
Criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams - but he can't pull it off alone.
A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can't walk…
In classic slasher movie fashion, Ames assembles a group of teens, each with complicated backstories, and strands them in the middle of Antarctica. But they aren’t alone; there’s the recently unearthed shapeshifting monster picking them off one by one.
The gruesome and gory descriptions of the creature shifting are almost as horrifying as the claustrophobic and exhausting journey of survival on the most isolated continent.
Even with a climate change backdrop and a thinly veiled commentary on billionaires who operate above the law, this is a pulse-pounding, relentless horror story that makes you root for its characters and shudder at every sight of their predator.
Shy high school junior Riley Kowalski is spending her winter break on a research trip to Antarctica, sponsored by one of the world's biggest tech companies. She joins five student volunteers, a company-approved chaperone, and an impartial scientist to prove that environmental plastic pollution has reached all the way to Antarctica, but what they find is something much worse... something that looks human.
Riley has anxiety - ostracised by the kids at school because of panic attacks - so when she starts to feel like something's wrong with their expedition leader, Greta, she writes it off. But when Greta snaps…
From Brick & Darkness follows an average, city-dwelling teenager whose life spins out of control when he finds himself entangled in ancient djinn magic and mythology in this award-winning, dark reimagining of Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp.
The ring speaks to Bax in a dream, tempting him with a vision of a powerful djinn. Desperate to make his fantasies a reality, Bax unleashes a creature called Ifrit, but soon learns this djinn isn't what the ring led him to believe. Feeding off the depths of his subconscious, the sinister demon fulfills what he thinks Bax wants by manipulating, threatening, and murdering. With everyone he loves in danger and a trail of crimes pointing back at him, Bax must scramble to solve the puzzle that will banish Ifrit forever.
