Sav’s Review

Watchers does not feel like a debut novel, it feels like it was written by a seasoned sci-fi author. Craig Priestley wrote an awesome and very well edited sci-fi thriller that was an absolute joy to read.

“They’re listening.”

Those are the irreversible words that tear Charlie’s world apart.

Struggling through everyday life in London, Charlie loses his job, his friends, and even more than he could ever imagine. The only thing that keeps him from spiraling into a pit of uncertainty is his inexplicable infatuation with the barmaid.

While Charlie fights tooth and nail just to survive, so does the world around him – humanity deteriorates quickly, with acts of crime and terror spiking worldwide. Police find themselves stretched, the government clueless, but Charlie’s eyes are open to the truth.

Something that really sticks out to me is that Priestley is able to combine themes of philosophy and perception in a way that doesn’t feel heavy handed, and doesn’t disrupt the story. Charlie, the protagonist, has a lot to question about his rapidly changing reality, but it doesn’t slow the plot any more than it should.

The author also combines realistic events with sci-fi elements effortlessly. The aspect of this that is most important is that the events feel real even though they are unrealistic. The U.S. is entered into a war with Russia, which feels very real when read by an American, then they go through the espionage and nuclear aspect of war. It felt so frightening and realistic to me. But, the sci-fi elements kept it from feeling too real, it had a good balance.

There’s one quote that felt especially relevant to current events in the U.S., the quote is,

“In Washington DC, workers carried on with their everyday lives. The terror threat was at its highest level since attacks on the Twin Towers, yet America stood still for no one.”

This country does not rest, not for war, not for terror attacks, and not for pandemics. It’s a very true quote no matter how absurd the idea is.

On a lighter note, the comedic banter in this novel is great. It’s a serious novel but it doesn’t throw comedic relief to the side like many sci-fi thrillers. The characters are funny and the conversations they have feel natural. Here is my favorite bit of conversation,

“But how do you assign importance?”

“Well, it’s someone that people look up to.”

“Is it similar to when you compare yourself to Chris Hemsworth?”

“What?” Charlie shot upright, avoiding eye contact with Anabel.

“When you look in the mirror, flexing your arms and pretending you have a large hammer in your hand.”

This was so well timed in the novel and it actually made me laugh out loud. These are the types of conversations I could see real people having and it added another layer of depth to the characters.

I like how this novel is mostly sci-fi with sprinkles of outright horror. The antagonists called, the corrupted, are these horrifying beings that are supposed to watch over their assigned human, but instead they corrupt them and make them do horrible things, like murder and rape. They’re like guardian angels gone bad, and they are described as frequently expressing classical body horror by twisting their necks and popping their limbs. I could picture it, and it was terrifying.

One tiny piece that bothered me was the conversion from miles to kilometers. This was obviously written for a UK audience, so it’s not a big deal, but it’s mentioned that a road sign in the US shows kilometers instead of miles. The U.S. is weird and for some reason we do miles instead of what everyone else does, so you wouldn’t find a sign like that here. But, it made me wonder if those who use kilometer know how to convert it to miles or vice versa.

If you ask me, Watchers earns an easy 4/5 stars. The ending is left open for a potential sequel and I hope there is one.

Interested in reading Watchers? You can find the first three chapters here. If you decide to buy your own copy you’d be doing me a huge favor by purchasing it through my affiliate link. Click here to get your own copy and I will get a portion of the proceeds with no extra cost to you.

Author Bio:

Craig Priestley is a fiction author based in London, UK.

He graduated from the University of Greenwich with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media Writing and released his debut sci-fi novel ‘Watchers’ in January, 2020.

He started Watchers as a creative outlet for some of his more interesting ideas. He worked on the project for six years before it finally all came together in 2020.

He has been working on a second novel on the side, which will be the first in a trilogy titled The United World.He is hoping to release the first installment by Christmas of this year, so keep your eyes out.

The Fiery Crown carries on the legacy of The Orchid Throne, in the second installment of the Forgotten Empires series.

A desperate alliance. A struggle for survival. And a marriage of convenience with an epic twist of fate come together in Jeffe Kennedy’s The Fiery Crown.

WILL THEIR LOVE STAND THE TEST OF TIME

Queen Euthalia has reigned over her island kingdom of Calanthe with determination, grace, and her magical, undying orchid ring. After she defied an empire to wed Conrí, the former Crown Prince of Oriel―a man of disgraced origins with vengeance in his heart―Lia expected the wizard’s prophecy to come true: Claim the hand that wears the ring and the empire falls. But Lia’s dangerous bid to save her realm doesn’t lead to immediate victory. Instead, destiny hurls her and Conrí towards a future neither could predict…

OR TEAR THEIR WHOLE WORLD APART?

Con has never healed after the death of his family and destruction of his kingdom―he’s been carefully plotting his revenge against his greatest enemy, Emperor Anure, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. When Lia’s spies gather intelligence suggesting that Anure is planning an attack against Calanthe, Con faces an agonizing choice: Can he sacrifice Lia and all she holds dear to destroy the empire? Or does his true loyalty exist in the arms of his beguiling, passionate wife―’til death do they part?

The best part about this novel is that it keeps Queen Euthalia’s relationship with Conrí realistic. Their relationship is the most important dynamic of this novel because together they decide the fate of Calanthe and her people. What the author does well is create a budding romantic relationship while also keeping the tension between them due to their opposing views. The banter between the characters is frustrating but realistic, here is an example,

Con visibly dragged his snapping temper back and tried for a more rational tone of voice. “We’re in this fight together—and we can’t win if you won’t trust us with the knowledge we need to plan strategy. You agreed to this plan. Help me to help you.”

“Oh, are we trusting each other again? I lost track when you were accusing Me of lying and lecturing Me on the defense of Calanthe.”

At every turn they are bickering but they both have their own plans and loyalties. Their relationship is the perfect illustration of a conflicted romance. With everything at stake they are still willing to tear each other apart.

This book also takes a darker turn with much darker magic at play. We see Queen Euthalia endure hardships that I would’ve never imagined in the first installment. I liked this turn because it shows the depth and horror of war, a tyrant will do anything to secure victory. Aside from the brutality of her treatment this shows Euthalia’s ability to take pain and keep her loyalties. Showing her strength amended doubts that I felt towards her. I thought of her as mentally strong and a decent, though frightened, Queen, but her character has come full circle and shown her physical strength. The character development and was done very well.

The history of Calanthe and her people also becomes a more fully formed picture. Everything we have learned to this point has wrapped together, Conrí’s past and Euthalia’s past connect and we see how the past will play into the future. This has me particularly excited for the next installment. The way it’s woven together bodes well for the future of this series.

My only gripe is with the frustrating nature of the people of Calanthe. They seem to understand that their in danger but they don’t act afraid. Here is the quote that sparked that complaint,

They claimed they understood the dangers of the world beyond, admitted that their previous defenses no longer worked, and yet they wandered around their isolated paradise as if nothing could ever arrive to give them trouble.

This pulled me out of the novel a little bit because you’d think that a nation under the watchful eye of a tyrant, a tyrant they’ve just disobeyed, would be more fearful, and act fearful. Yet, they don’t. I don’t know if this is supposed to be because of the nature of life on Calanthe, but it bothered me.

I’d like to also add that in my review of the first novel I was curious as to where Jeffe Kennedy came up with the name Calanthe, I had just read one of The Witcher novels where there’s a Queen named Calanthe, and wondered if that’s where the author drew inspiration. Well, the author reached out to me and the name is actually Greek, and I thought that was really cool.

The Fiery Crown definitely keeps up the momentum from the first novel and has left me, yet again, excited for more. It earns a 4/5 stars.

Thank you to Jeffe Kennedy for allowing me access to this wonderful novel. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Interested in gettin your own copy of The Fiery Crown? If you follow my affiliate link below (the image), and purchase a copy, I’ll get a portion of the proceeds with no extra cost to you. The book releases on the 26th, two days! Pre-order now.

The Curse is a companion novella to Heir of Ashes. If you missed my review of Heir of Ashes you can find it here.

The Curse delves deep into the story of Roxanne’s parents, letting us know what happened to them and how she ended up where she is. It gives us the additional backstory that was missing from the first book.

I like how it mostly follows Roxanne’s father because he seemed like a very interesting character that just didn’t get to live in the first book. Through following the father we get to see the history of many other characters including Logan, and it also explains a little bit about why Roxanne and Logan’s relationship is so strange. There were a lot of details that I didn’t expect, but made a lot of sense.

This novella only takes about an hour to read and it fills in a lot of holes while also still asking questions. Because there is more to the series, this novella couldn’t answer all the questions, but it makes the world feel more rounded and it gives the history of the characters more backbone. I appreciate that the author could fit so much background into such a quick read.

Because you don’t exactly understand everyone’s timelines it makes the order of events and characters a little harder to follow. I always have a hard time following character names and relationships so it did get a little bit confusing here and there, but it was enlightening to the story.

As far as novellas go I’d say that The Curse is a 4/5 stars. Thank you to Jina S. Bazzar for continuing to reach out to me. I’m excited to read and review the next book in the series Heir of Doom.

Interested in buying a copy of The Curse? If you click the image below, and purchase the book, I will get a portion of the proceeds with no extra cost to you.

Magic is the kind of book you read when you need to feel happy. It will whisk you away to a strange world so much like our own, but also so different.

Does magic exist? Charlie Watson thinks it does and he wants to tell you all about it. Before he was famous, Charlie Watson decided to write a book to share with the world everything he knew about magic. This is that book. You will discover why Charlie always wears a top hat, why his house is full of rabbits, how magic wands are made, how the universe began, and much, much more. Plus, for the first time, Charlie tells of the strange events that led him from England to the Arctic, to perform the extraordinary feat that made him famous, and he finally reveals whether that extraordinary feat was magic or whether it was just a trick. Magic is a magic novel by Mike Russell.

(Description from Amazon)

My favorite thing about this novel is that it never loses hope. The main character Charlie struggles with the idea that maybe magic isn’t real, and it causes him to slip into depression. In this novel they call it, the pull of the hole, because the Arctic and Antarctic have holes in them that lead all the way through the Earth and spit out the other side. Everyone who doesn’t believe in Magic feels the pull of the hole, and many people who feel it jump in and die. But, even when Charlie feels the pull he doesn’t give up. At one point Charlie says,

“If you jump into the hole-through-the-Earth, you’ll never know what might have happened if you hadn’t. Something amazing might have happened! Something more amazing than anything you could have imagined!”

That really resonated with me because suicide is a hard subject. My family has experienced its aftermath like many others and the pain never truly goes away. These words are right, if you end it you’ll never know what could have happened.

At first, I didn’t really like Charlie because he was gullible and child-like, but he did grow on me, and I often found myself feeling bad for him. He believes in lies that were told to him by one of the only people that treated him with dignity and it all comes crashing down. Mike Russell does a fantastic job of setting Charlie up for disappointment, but not making him a miserable character. Charlie’s life starts to come crashing down when he visits a magic show, I knew it wasn’t going to end well when he said,

“It’s a ridiculous thing to think because a magician would never do that. A magician would never trick an audience.”

I knew in that moment I was about to watch a train wreck, but Charlie never becomes a hard character to read, even when he feels the pull of the hole.

Russell also does a great job of setting up a world adjacent to our own. Everything is pretty much the same but a few key elements are different. The book opens with a different telling of the Big Bang, it starts like this,

“Before the universe existed, there was a giant, black, upside-down top hat surrounded by empty, black nothingness. There was nothing inside the top hat and there was nothing outside the top hat. The top hat was all there was, except for the nothingness. And the nothingness went on forever.”

I love when authors retell either the story of creation or the Big Bang to set up their worlds, because it creates familiarity. I know I’m entering a world similar to mine even though it might not be the same. Russell does a fantastic job of bridging that gap between our reality and the reality of this book.

I wasn’t too fond of this story being told through Charlie’s diary, because the character is a rambler and he seems like an unreliable narrator. The book seems like it’s going to end, then doesn’t. While I’m glad it doesn’t actually end because the novel has a fabulous ending, I didn’t like the feeling of okay, we’re done, just kidding. It was a roller coaster of strange anticipation that was more of a distraction than interesting. But, I will say that through Charlie’s writing Russell makes a really good point. Charlie/Russell writes,

“These words that I’m writing are showing it all to you in your mind. That’s what words can do. I describe something using words and you see what I’m describing in your mind.”

I love this quote because it’s so true, and perfectly expresses the idea of storytelling. Writing is magic, because somehow authors are able to transport their vision into your mind.

Magic earns a 4/5 stars. Thank you to Mike Russell and Jay from StrangeBooks for reaching out to me.

What do you think of this book? Let me know in the comments.

Interested in buying a copy of Magic? If you purchase by using my affiliate link below (the image), at no extra cost to you I will get a portion of the proceeds.

Heir of Ashes is the action packed introductory novel to The Roxanne Fosch Files. While not a perfect novel it bodes well for the future of this series.

At the age of twelve, Roxanne Fosch had a perfectly normal life. By the time she was twenty-two, she was being hunted.

After being trapped for years in the clutches of the Paranormal Scientists Society, Roxanne escapes and sets on a dangerous quest for the truth. 

Hunted by scientists keen to exploit her extraordinary abilities, and dangerous factions whose plans she cannot fathom, Roxanne discovers a shocking secret about her past. But is everything she’s ever known a lie?

What I like about Bazzar’s world, is that it is extraordinarily unique to anything I’ve read. Supernatural beings are used left and right, monsters are combined, and they can all be read by their aura. Aura reading is a special ability that Roxanne has, along with several other special powers. This book reminded me of a cross between Men in Black and X-Men. The monsters span across many different regional folktales, and encompass the supernatural all over the world.
In that context, I do wish that I had a better understanding of how the supernatural world worked. It’s all eluded to, but you never get a real feeling for how the powers or the clans function. It feels like they were kind of just a back drop for the story.

The main character Roxanne, did kind of a swaying back and forth between damsel and extreme badass. I loved her, but at times wanted to punch her for her naïveté. She would go from this,

“I was a half breed, an inferior, and a woman to boot.“

A woman who was feeling a bit sorry for herself, to this,

“I was angry. I wanted to kill and dismember every single person who had dared to encage me. I wanted to keep filleting the guard, to bathe in his blood.”

I much preferred the wild version of Roxanne and hated that she could easily go from such a self-assured strong woman, to kind of a hopeless girl. It didn’t feel right, because most of the time she is a hard-core survivor.

I loved all of the action sequences in this book, and there are a lot of them. They were well-written and keep you on the edge of your seat. I kept wondering what was going to happen next, what magical being would be the next fight? It was really cool reading fight scenes with a bit of supernatural mixed in. It made the action even faster and gave everything higher stakes. There’s so much more to lose when your enemy can kick your head off no problem.

Roxanne’s life only seems to get harder at every turn, her only constant is Logan, a were vampire hybrid. I really enjoyed their friendship but not so much their romance. To me it felt like the scenes where they are friends in arms were much more natural than any of the romantic scenes. In my eyes they just felt so incompatible. Maybe it’s Roxanne’s reluctance, but I hope this something that becomes more natural as the series progresses.

The tone of this book stays relatively consistent. It felt like a long book but the fast-paced tone made it an exciting read. It keeps that quick pacing and allows you to get a lot of action wrapped between two covers. If there was something I needed in my life, it was a good action novel, and Heir of Ashes certainly delivers the action.

With everything considered, this novel earns a solid 3/5 stars. I strongly look forward to what will happen to Roxanne next. This book is set up for a sequel, and where this book leaves off has me excited for what will happen next. I will definitely recommend this to anyone who likes action and the supernatural.

A big thank you to Jina S. Bazzar for reaching out to me and supplying me with a copy of this book. It’s a fun read and deserves a following.

Let me know what you think about this book in the comments!

If you’re interested you can pick up your own copy by clicking the image below. If you purchase through my affiliate link I’ll get a small portion of the proceeds with no extra cost to yourself.

May is a tender and heartbreaking novel that won my heart. This is a story about perseverance and love, it’s one I won’t be forgetting for a long time.

May is a coming of age story about a 16 year old girl who runs away from home and starts a new life in a new town. She’s hardheaded and soft hearted and she’s lives a somewhat sheltered life , but all of that is about to change. 

First, I’d like to say that May is a very impactful novel that touches on a lot of hard topics, racism, abuse, and rape. It is a hard novel to get through but it handles those subjects in a way that felt earnest and careful. Green was successful in writing about sensitive subjects and keeping them sensitive, while exploring a time when these issues were prevalent.

You really get a feeling for the characters in May. Each character has depth and they contain something within themselves that is either all together good or bad. I like how none of the characters are perfect, they all have some kind of flaw, but it adds to who they are, and some characters are even too flawed.

This novel tackles racism hard, and I’d like to point that out specifically, because oftentimes newer authors will make major mistakes or sound insincere when mapping this subject out. Authors tend to turn their main character into an anti-racism superhero, and it comes off as unreal. Green does not do that, Green creates events that lead to changes being made, the story does not rely on the main character to fix everything. I like to call that mistake the deus ex syndrome, but Green does not commit that crime.

Marianna (May), is an excellent main character. She is extremely well written and I like how she is written to deal with her issues. She feels like a real person, she’s very flawed but she’s also a genuinely kind person. She does all that she can to help those around her even though her future is a mystery. Green wrote her with a lot of depth, she makes May’s fears and desires a point of contention, while also using them as defining characteristics.

This book made me cry, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had that happen. It is such an emotional ride that I actually shed real tears. The sadness wrapped up in this relatively short book is astounding. The raw feeling in this novel is real, it’s heartbreaking because stuff like this really happened, these are real hardships. These issues are brought to the forefront and become driving factors for the characters. Very well written.

This novel is saying a lot and it brings up many of the problems people still face today. May has a very important message and it deserves to be heard.

I give May a 5/5 stars. Pick this one up when you’ve got the chance. A huge thank you to Kelli Green for reaching out to me about this novel, it’s one of a kind.

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