Karen's Choice - Books

Title:  The Wicked King Author: Holly Black Published: January 8, 2019 Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Pages: 336 Sypnosis: You must be strong enough to strike and strike and strike again without tiring. The first lesson is to make yourself strong. After the jaw-dropping revelation that Oak is the heir to Faerie, Jude must keep her brother safe. To do so, she has bound the wicked king, Cardan, to her and made herself the power behind the throne. Navigating the constantly shifting political alliances of Faerie would be difficult enough if Cardan were easy to control. But he does everything in his power to humiliate and undermine her even as his fascination with her remains undiminished. When it becomes all too clear that someone close to Jude means to betray her, threatening her own life and the lives of everyone she loves, Jude must uncover the traitor and fight her own complicated feelings for Cardan to maintain control as a mortal in a Faerie world. Review:...

Title: The Cruel Prince  Author: Holly Black Published: January 2nd, 2018 Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Summary: Of course, I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever. And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe. Jude was seven when her parents were murdered, and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the ...

Title: Madness  Author: Paityn Parque Published: August 11th, 2021 This book was given to me for a review request.  Summary:  Death is not an escape. One night Ezra Adkins is brutally murdered in her own home. As she was dying, she expects to wake up in the afterworld. She was wrong. She loses consciousness and awakens into a horrific game of kill or be killed. Players can be killed an infinite number of times, but the only permanent way out of the game is their actual death by suicide. Players in the game ruthlessly hunt each other for points, while others kill for fun. Most players have given up on finding an escape from the game and spiral into insanity, killing without reason. It’s mayhem. Ezra soon learns who to trust and who to hunt down. But as she falls deeper into the game, she starts to lose herself as the bodies pile up. The line blurs between what she’s always known to be right and wrong. Metal will clash. Blood will spill. Minds will break. And before it’s...

Title: The girl in red  Author: Christina Henry  Publisher: Berkley Published date: June 18th, 2019 Summary: It's not safe for anyone alone in the woods. Some predators come out at night: critters and coyotes, snakes, and wolves. But the woman in the red jacket has no choice. Not since the Crisis came, decimated the population, and sent those, who survived fleeing into quarantine camps that serve as breeding grounds for death, destruction, and disease. She is just a woman trying not to get killed in a world that doesn't look anything like the one she grew up in, the one that was perfectly sane and normal and boring until three months ago. There are worse threats in the woods than the things that stalk their prey at night. Sometimes, there are men. Men with dark desires, weak wills, and evil intents. Men in uniform with classified information, deadly secrets, and unforgiving orders. And sometimes, just sometimes, there's something worse than all of the horrible people and...