Cece Likes Books

 Introduction  The Isle in the Silver Sea is a story about stories, and follows the lady knight Vina and the witch-scribe Simran as they try to break the chains of their story that will force them to one day fall in love and tragically kill one another. This is the story boiled down to the bone, but so much more is needed to understand the full picture of the world the main characters live in. The premise of the book is a bit hard to grasp but at its surface it is easy to see where the story wants to take us but the journey was an unexpected pleasure. A story about stories is one of my absolutely favourite tropes and I was not disappointed - I have long since craved something that could satisfy me after A Dark and Drowning Tide . Either way, there is not much to say about this book without getting into the details, so let us begin. World building  One of best (and worst) aspects of this book is without a doubt the world building. In the beginning, absolutely nothing ...

Introduction  The story follows Saeris, a 24-year old girl who lives in the poorest district of a dessert engulfed country where she survives by stealing and working the forge. When she is caught stealing metal from one of the guards, she is taken to the immortal queen to be punished, but in a real ”Sword in the Stone” scene, she pulls out a magical sword, and as she is dying from my wounds, she is taken by a stranger to the Fae realm. It is a decent setup, but if you read the description of the book, you realise quickly that she will be transported into another world and I immediately worried that all would soon be forgotten – and it was. The only thing that carries over from one world to the other is that Saeris is obsessed with water, as it was a sparse resource in her home country, and suddenly seeing snow and being able to shower seems unreal. Afterwards, all is soon forgotten, along with her original goals; and for what? The oh so handsome asshole named Kingfisher.  Worl...

Introduction  In a not so ordinary pawnshop in Tokyo, you can pawn your choices and regrets and leave never knowing what you gave up.   Water Moon follows the pawnshop owner's daughter, Hana, who wakes up to the shop ransacked and her father missing - but Hana has lived her entire life surrounded by puzzles and being trained in who to read (and to a certain extend manipulate) people.  She embarks on her hunt for her father along with Keishin, a physicist from the "normal" world who cannot resist the idea of exploring a world that defies all the logic he breathes every day.  The premise is simple, and the story is clear from the very beginning. But as Hana herself states several times, nothing is ever as it seems, and this book pulled the carpet away from under my feet several times at the end. It is a journey that never really slows down with each place being more magical and intriguing than the last. It was easy to tell from the very start that this book deserv...

Introduction  The story follows Cemmy, a girl with magical powers and her found family of friends and their involuntarily participation in a heist of the ages. Or that is the selling point of the book at least. Cemmy struggles with the guilt of having caused a friend's death, and a year after she still keeps it a secret from her friend group and her ex-girlfriend Novi. But when the group gets an offer that is too good to refuse, they take on a job that quickly turns out to be a trap: collaborate with the mysterious and dangerous Savina, or die. Due the friend groups special abilities, as they are half-bloods so to speak, their magic manifest differently to those of full-blood hence Cemmy and the rest are forced to break into the most highly guarded building in the city. And to steal what you may ask? Yeah, not even the characters know. It is a promising set up, who doesn't love a good heist, however, it quickly became clear to me that no one could really focus on the premise - ...

"Back in the days when wishes still held power". This time, I will not make a full review but I would rather like to focus on one of the aspects I really enjoyed in my latest read, A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft. The premise was a tad misleading as I thought I was going to read a murder mystery book with some magic sprinkled on top. However, it becomes very clear that the protagonist, Lorelei Kaskel, isn't the greatest detective out there since she is rather bad at making friends and keeping up polite conversations. She is on the other hand extremely well-aware of how she is perceived in society and over a five year period she has fostered a real hatred to Sylvia von Wolff, her academic nemesis. But where Sylvia divulges all of her time to magical beings, Lorelei spends her time on folklore, collecting and transcribing myths throughout the magical realm that she inhabits - and this is where Saft does something I haven't seen before. Lorelei often reflects ov...

 Introduction  The story follows the 18 year old girl Ying, an engineering prodigy who sets off to the capital after her father is killed and she catches the assassin in the act. The world is East Asian inspired, and to many it is a retelling of Mulan as Ying has to disguise herself as a boy to get into the Engineering Guild where she hopes to learn more about her father's past and his killer. She is rescued and continuously supported by Ye-yang, one of the four beiles working under the High Commander, and they start catching feelings for one another as the story progresses.  This is the initial setting for the story, but it quickly became clear to me that Ying didn't actually know what she wanted. In the beginning, she has her eyes set on catching the killer, but she quiet literally runs into him before even reaching the capital, but runs off since she hasn't planned what to do yet. And that is probably one of my biggest problems with the story: Ying doesn't really do ...