Review: A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston

Title: A Thousand Nights.
Author: E.K. Johnston
Publication Date: October 22nd, 2015.
Publisher: Macmillan.
Genres: Fantasy, Re-telling, Young Adult.
Format: Paperback, 256 pages.
Source: ARC Provided By Publisher.
My Rating:

Lo-Melkiin killed three hundred girls before he came to my village, looking for a wife.

When Lo-Melkhiin – a formidable king – arrives at her desert home, she knows that he will take her beautiful sister for a wife. Desperate to save her sister from certain death, she makes the ultimate sacrifice – leaving home and family behind to live with a fearful man.

But it seems that a strange magic flows between her and Lo-Melkiin, and night after night, she survives. Finding power in storytelling, the words she speaks are given strange life of their own. Little things, at first: a dress from home, a vision of her sister. But she dreams of bigger, more terrible magic: power enough to save a King… if only she can stop her heart from falling for a monster.

 

Review

When I first read the blurb for A Thousand Nights, I was extremely excited – I thought the whole premise and idea behind the novel sounded brilliant. So I went into reading A Thousand Nights with rather high expectations even though I’d not read the original tale of Arabian Nights or read any reviews on it beforehand. I’m pretty sure this proved to be my undoing, as I really didn’t enjoy reading A Thousand Nights as much as I thought I would. I’m afraid I was only vaguely interested in what was happening, and as much as I was curious to find out what happened next, I just couldn’t wait for it to end. So much could have been done with this retelling, and it could have been crafted beautifully, and I actually feel really sad that I didn’t reading it like I hoped I would.

Our main protagonist is a bit of mystery, this is because we don’t know her name until the end of the book. I didn’t actually realise that she hadn’t been called anything other than ‘my lady’, ‘lady-bless’, ‘sister’, ‘wife’ and ‘daughter of mine’ until I was over half way through A Thousand Nights. The main character wasn’t anything special, or that well developed in my opinion, which was a real shame as I thought a lot more could have been done with it. The only thing I knew about her was that she had a high morals, which I actually really commended her for, she fought for what she believed in and wanted. She would literally do anything to save the ones she loved, unlike a lot of characters that say they would but never actually follow through, and I thought that was beautiful. Other than that there isn’t a whole lot else to say about her character, as nothing else is really given away, which is probably why I found it so different to relate to her character on any level which is a real shame.

Overall, I wasn’t keen on A Thousand Nights at all. There were many occasions where I wanted to just put the book down and not complete it, but I hate doing so, so I forced myself to keep reading the story. I didn’t completely dislike A Thousand Nights, as I believe the whole idea of the story is amazing, but I just didn’t get on with E.K. Johnston’s retelling of Arabian Nights. I’ll definitely be reading a different retelling of the storyline, as I own another, but unfortunately this particular one just wasn’t for me. I felt like I couldn’t connect with the characters, I was thoroughly confused on more than one occasion, and although I loved the whole idea of the storyline and the concept, the writing style and general pace of the book bored me. I hate to rate a book such a low rating, but I feel like 2.5/5 stars I gave it best reflected my opinion. Don’t be too discouraged by my review though, if you think you’d enjoy it, then you should definitely pick it up and give it a go. Just because it wasn’t my cup of tea doesn’t mean it won’t be yours!

Quotes

It began slowly. One moving spark in a sky full of fixed lights, spiralling blue and gold, and then doused by the blackness of the sky. Not all of us saw it, it burned so quickly, but soon there were plenty of lights to marvel at.
I hoped my sister was watching. I hoped she did not fear the sight, but stood in the sand and watched this beauty with her strong heart. - Page 76.

They were burning up, and they didn't even know they were afire. - Page 107.

She was not of my kind, yet there was some power to her that was not human, not quite. She did not die, and I wondered if I might at last have found a queen for whom I could set the desert on fire. - Page 109.

Good men fall to monsters every day. Clever men are tricked by their own pride or pretty words. - Page 258.

Review: Her Dark Curiosity by Megan Shepherd

Title: Her Dark Curiosity.
Series: The Madman’s Daughter, #2.
Author: Megan Shepherd.
Publication Date: January 28th, 2014.
Publisher: Harper Voyager.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Re-telling, Young Adult.
Format: Paperback, 368 pages.
Source: Provided By Publisher.
My Rating:

Back in London after her trip to Dr. Moreau's horrific island, Juliet is rebuilding the life she once knew and trying to forget her father's legacy. But soon it's clear that someone – or something – hasn't forgotten her, as people close to Juliet start falling victim to a murderer who leaves a macabre calling card of three clawlike slashes. Has one of her father's creations also escaped the island?

As Juliet strives to stop a killer while searching for a serum to cure her own worsening illness, she finds herself once more in a world of scandal and danger. Her heart torn in two, past bubbling to the surface, life threatened by an obsessive killer – Juliet will be lucky to escape alive.

 

Review

I have to say, I’m really enjoying reading retellings of novels lately, so much more than I expected too! The first book in this series is a retelling of The Island of Dr. Moreau, which unfortunately I have yet to read, and Her Dark Curiosity is a retelling of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – which I have actually read many years ago. Her Dark Curiosity was an amazing novel filled with suspense and mystery that’ll keep you guessing all the way through! It’s been nearly a year since I read the first book, but with the help of useful information throughout Her Dark Curiosity and my review of the first book, everything came flooding back and I was once more engrossed in the world Megan Shepherd has written and distracted by the characters that she’s created and the trouble they get themselves into.

I recall having a love/hate relationship with Juliet in The Madman’s Daughter, but in Her Dark Curiosity she didn’t frustrate me as much, and I just generally liked her character much more. Juliet is definitely more of a bad-ass character in this novel; obviously the events that happened to her on the island in the first novel have strengthened her a lot. However, they’ve also hardened her a little more than I’d expected. A few of her decisions throughout the book, along with her reactions, kind of irritated me – but overall I think Juliet is an awesome and wonderfully developed character that I just can’t help but love. If I had the chance to meet her, I have to say I definitely would! Maybe we could discuss our mutual madness, or maybe her inability to make a sensible choice? Either way, Juliet makes some dangerous decisions and acts very irrationally on her hunt to find answers – but she’s still pretty darn awesome.

I’m always torn when it comes to what side I’m on when it comes to opinions on love triangles. Depending on how the love triangle is developed, I’m usually quite positive towards the whole situation – but there are times when the whole thing just frustrates me and I feel like throwing the book at the wall. Luckily for me, the love triangle in this series is brilliantly done and in this instance, I’m really not sure which side to be on – as I keep changing my mind! Juliet is in love with Montgomery and can’t stop thinking about him, even though he broke her heart – yet their relationship is sweet, caring and beautiful. Edward’s relationship with Juliet is so different in contrast – she’s adamant that she doesn’t love him, or care for him in that way – but there’s something about him that she’s drawn too. Maybe she’s recognising the animal within and knows that he understands her and accepts her in a way Montgomery can’t? I’m not sure, but their relationship is more primal and heady and makes me want to collapse into a chair swooning. I really can’t wait to see who she ends up choosing.

Overall, I really loved reading Her Dark Curiosity – it was fantastic sequel with twists and turns around every corner. Megan Shepherd’s writing is really brilliant and everything is so beautifully written and described. I really can’t find many faults with Her Dark Curiosity, which is why I believe it well and truly deserves the 4/5 star rating I’ve given it. I honestly can’t wait for the release of the third and final book in this trilogy; I really need to find out what happens next and where the characters end up! Megan Shepherd is an amazing author with an incredible ability to create not only amazing storylines but wonderful and loveable characters – even the enemies are brilliantly written! I’d recommend this series to anyone who’s a fan of historical fiction and mystery-thriller novels; even if you’re not well acquainted with historical novels (I’m certainly not!) So please, try and pick up this series – I’m sure you won’t regret it!

 

Quotes

I don’t know what instinct made me keep such a bloody memento of a murderer.
Call it sentimentality. Call it curiosity.
Just don't call it madness. - Page 38.

He smiled grimly, though there was no glee in to, as though for once he understood how heartbreaking this was for me. 'No serum can change who you are. Nor should you change. Genius or madness – it all depends on who’s telling the story.’ His hand stopped tapping, and that humanity flickered again in his eye. ‘You’re perfect as you are, my love.’
I took another shaky step away from him, fearful and confused, and hurried up the stairs. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t get away from his words.
He was right. No serum could cure who I really was – a Moreau, through and through. - Page 323.

Sometimes you have to embrace the darkness to stop it. - Page 333.

Review: Briar Rose by Jana Oliver

Title: Briar Rose.
Author: Jana Oliver.
Publication Date: September 12th, 2013.
Publisher: Macmillan.
Genres: Re-telling, Young Adult.
Format: Paperback, 470 pages.
Source: Provided By Publisher.
My Rating:

Briar Rose believes in Fairy Tales. And now, because of a family curse, she’s living one. Doomed to fall asleep for one hundred years on her sixteenth birthday, Briar has woken up in the darkest, most twisted fairy tale she could ever have dreamed of – miles away from the safe, boring small-town life that she has left behind.

Briar must fight her way out of the story, but she can’t do it alone. She always believed in handsome princes, and now she’s met one her only chance is to put her life in his hands, or there will be no happy ever after and no waking up...

 

Review

Briar Rose is an incredibly dark, twisted, sexy and unique re-imagining of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale with plenty of different plot twists to keep anyone on their toes! I went into reading Briar Rose with reasonably high expectations and was completely blown away by the whole thing. Briar Rose is a fantastic and wonderfully written novel, with just the right amount of action and romance! The entire way through Briar Rose I was completely captivated and had no idea what would happen next. There are so many unique and fascinating details in Briar Rose and everything is incredibly well thought out – I just couldn’t get enough of the story.

Briar Rose is our main protagonist, and I absolutely adored her character. Not only was she really relatable and fun to read about, but she was also funny, kind and generally a really thoughtful person. Briar is obsessed with fairy tales, and loves everything about them – which is why the whole situation was so ironic in a way and kind of funny in a way. Briar has always yearned for adventure and to be swept off her feet by a prince and carried into the sunset, and suddenly all of her dreams seem possible when she’s catapulted in to this dark and twisted fairy tale.

Joshua is the guy who’s totally off-limits to Briar, not because he’s involved with someone else – but because their parents forbid it. Joshua is complete and utter sweetheart, and I loved his character right off the bat. I thought it was amazing how much he’d risk just to be near Briar, even just to talk to her. It’s completely obvious how smitten he is with her right from the beginning, and I thought his affection was really adorable. Not only was Joshua funny, kind, caring and sweet, he was also a really firm, and well developed character that you just can’t help but love.

Overall, I thought Briar Rose was an extra-ordinary novel that I just couldn’t put down. I sped through the book so quickly, even though it was over 400 pages! Jana Oliver is a brilliant writer, with a unique and wonderful writing style that really captures your attention and draws you into her world. I can’t seem to find a single fault with her writing at all. The only thing that stopped this book being a 5 star read, instead of a 4.5 was mainly because of the reactions the characters had to magic and fairy tales in general. I thought that the characters parents, and the characters themselves, bought into the whole situation way too easily – and really didn’t doubt it at all. I mean, if someone came up to me and told me something was happening like in Briar Rose, I’d probably laugh. However, this didn’t change how great I thought this book was. I can’t wait to read more from Jana Oliver in the future, and I think it’d be amazing if she created another book like Briar Rose, but with different characters and a different situation.

Quotes

Over the years this curse will remain vigilant, growing in strength, changing course as needed. Then, when the time is right, it will fulfil its calling. Sate its near-human desire for revenge.
No mercy. No second chances. Only more tears to feed the bitterness. Page 01.

‘Helloooo? You still there? Let me guess, you were redecorating the castle, right?’
It was Reena’s way of poking fun at Briar’s ‘obsession’, as she called it. It was her father’s fault: when Briar was four, he’d read her ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ at bedtime. She’d come away from that experience with a true love of fairy tales and a morbid fear of wolves. From there she’d gone through the Disney phase where all the fairy tales ended happily ever after. Now she was solidly in the Brothers Grimm camp, where happy endings usually required a few corpses just to even things out. - Pages 16 & 17.

They crushed the creatures as fast as possible, but it was no use. The tide of centipedes scrambling over each other to get a taste of human was overwhelming. It was ironic. All her mother’s protectiveness had been a waste of time: her daughter was about to become supper for a ravenous family of magical arthropods. - Page 254.

Review: The Madman's Daughter by Megan Shepherd

Title: The Madman's Daughter.
Series: The Madman's Daughter, #1.
Author: Megan Shepherd.
Publication Date: February 21st, 2013.
Publisher: Harper Voyager.
Genres: Historical Fiction, Re-telling, Young Adult.
Format: Paperback, 360 pages.
Source: Provided By Publisher.
My Rating:

To uncover the truth means risking all...

London, 1894. Juliet Moreau has built a life for herself-working as a maid, attending church on Sundays, and trying not to think about the scandal that ruined her life. After all, no one ever proved the rumours about her father′s gruesome experiments. But when she learns her father is alive and continuing his work on a remote tropical island, she is determined to find out if the accusations were true.

Yet what she finds on the island is twisted beyond all imagining, and out of her father’s control. As the island rapidly descends into chaos, she must escape the horrors of her father’s creations, but not before she discovers the true extent of her father’s genius – and madness – in her own blood.

 

Review

“His hand tangled in my hair, and his lips were inches away but he wouldn’t kiss me, torturing me with the space between us.”

The Madman’s Daughter was inspired by the novel The Island of Doctor Moreau, which was published in the late 1890’s. As I’d not read the original novel, I was a little worried of how I would get along with reading this retelling. As I started to read this book, I realised I definitely had nothing to fear at all – because after the first 20 or so pages, I was completely drawn into the world and characters Megan Shepherd has created. The book had me hooked from there on, and even now, hours after finishing it, I’m still going over the story in my mind.

I had a love/hate relationship with Juliet Moreau, our main protagonist. Whilst reading The Madman’s Daughter, half of the time I felt like she was a strong and really interesting character – and the other half I really hated her. I know that the novel is set in the 1890’s, but I felt that if she was bold enough to be doing some of the things she does in the novel, then she’d perfectly capable of looking after herself. She went from acting like she had a backbone, to behaving like a typical 18th century woman, embarrassed to be showing her ankles. However, overall, I really did like her character – she was interesting to read about and had quite a few blunt and witty remarks that constantly made me laugh.

Dr. Moreau was extremely smart, firm, devoted and totally and absolutely insane. It seemed that, as the novel progressed, so did his level of madness. With every page I turned, he seemed to slip further and further off the ledge of sanity. Even though Dr. Moreau was deranged and created sick and inhuman creations, I couldn’t help but be in awe of his intelligence. He was very unpredictable and obviously felt no remorse for his actions – even though he was putting the animals through so much pain. Some of the surgical scenes made me feel sick and made my heart ache – I can’t understand how anyone would want to hurt animals in general – let alone for science experiments. Isn’t the world developed enough? Megan Shepherd captured the insanity of Dr. Moreau perfectly, and it was perfectly obvious throughout the entire book that he didn’t care about anything or anyone but his experiments.

There are two other main male characters in the novel, aside from Dr Moreau; Montgomery and Edward - both of which are the possibly love-interests of Juliet throughout the book. I groaned inwardly when I realised there was a possibly love-triangle forming in The Madman’s Daughter. I’ve never been a fan of love triangles, but if I do read a book with them in, I usually have a favourite guy I’m rooting for. However, I really couldn’t decide who I preferred in this book, and it drove me insane wondering which guy Juliet would choose because she kept flitting about between the two. Talk about indecisive!

Montgomery was Juliet’s old servant from when she was a child; they grew up together and were extremely close friends. I loved reading about their prior relationship, and watching their friendship bloom once again. He was sweet, kind and interesting – and even though he wasn’t a proper gentleman by society’s standards, he always tried his best and I thought that it made him an even more of a wonderful character. I did, however, frown a little bit on how quickly loving feelings between Montgomery and Juliet rose. I know they knew each other from their past, but I found it hard to comprehend how Juliet could forgive him for doing the same work as her Father. It was all a little too quick and predictable in my opinion, but none the less, I really did like his character.

As for Edward, I wasn’t sure what to make of him at first; I was a bit wary of him and couldn’t understand why Juliet felt so drawn to him. Edward was found at sea in a life boat, half dead and delirious from sea madness. Once recovered though, he becomes very interested in Juliet, but hardly reveals anything about himself – creating this air of mystery and darkness around himself. However, as the novel progressed, you really got to see his character traits more. He was sweet and pretty much a perfect gentleman, and it was obvious to see from early on that he cared and worried about Juliet’s safety. Although I liked both Montgomery’s and Edward’s characters, they both acted extremely jealous in multiple places throughout the book, and I couldn’t help but laugh at their reactions – it’s like they were peacocks puffing up their feathers to show they were better than the other.

The Island that Megan has created was incredible, everything was so detailed and she definitely didn’t skimp on the gruesome parts. Even though it was a very detailed read, it wasn’t over done, and was written at such a level that gives you most of the details, but leaves the rest to your imagination. The Madman’s Daughter is a gory, gritty, grimy and down-right haunting book. The entire novel is dark and mysterious, and the only light throughout it is the relationship and friendship Juliet has between Montgomery and Edward. This novel is definitely not for the squeamish or faint-hearted - however, if you’re a fan of this sort of book, I’d most definitely recommend it!

My only complaint about this novel was the fact that I thought the ending of the book was quite rushed. It also didn’t seem as polished and perfect as the rest of the book, as though the author was just trying to get everything over and done with quickly – which I found very disappointing. Overall though, I absolutely adored this book. It was fast paced, action pact and grim – I loved every minute of reading it and I found it really hard to put down. The ending of the book absolutely killed me, and I found myself muttering absurdities under my breath at the last page. I wish it didn’t end the way it did, but I can see how the ending has been left open for future books in the series. I believe the 4/5 star rating fits the book perfectly because of the little things that niggled at me, but I can’t wait to pick up the sequel to The Madman’s Daughter and see where all the characters end up next.

Quotes

Now my eyes devoured the rabbit’s body, trying to match the fleshy bits of organ and bone to the ink diagrams I knew by heart. An urge raced through my veins to touch the striated muscle of the heart, feel the smooth length of the intestine. - Page 14.

I studied him closely. The sand still clung to his ear, and I reached up on impulse and brushed it off. His heartbeat sped at my touch. I wanted to believe him. But even if he was right, I knew that one didn’t have to be a creation to be a monster. My own family history proved that.
For a moment he stood a breath away. His fingers found my wrist and traced along the edge of my arm. He cleared his throat and looked ready to say something, but then he shook his head. ‘Good night, Juliet.’ He left slowly, as if he had to pry himself away before he did something improper. A growing part of me wished he’d stayed. - Page 219.

He pressed his lips into my palm, my knuckles, each of my fingertips, drowning me with a thousand waves of pleasure. He murmured my name. The sound of it on his lips, so aching, choked me with passion. I grabbed his collar, pulling our lips together. Not knowing if it was wrong or right or today or tomorrow. He hardly needed persuading. He kissed me back so hard the operating table shook beneath us. The surgical tray fell and tools crashed to the floor. I hardly noticed. He picked me up around the waist and sat me farther back on the table, leaning in, his chest rising and falling like a stormy tide. - Page 282.