Cyn's Workshop
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Review of 'The Infinity Courts'
Eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto is certain her life is just beginning. She has a great family, just graduated high school, and is on her way to a party where her entire class is waiting for her--including, most importantly, the boy she's been in love with for years. The only problem? She's murdered before she gets there. When Nami wakes up, she learns she's in a place called Infinity, where human consciousness goes when physical bodies die. She quickly discovers that Ophelia, a virtual assistant widely used by humans on Earth, has taken over the afterlife and is now posing as a queen, forcing humans into servitude the way she'd been forced to serve in the real world. Even worse, Ophelia is inching closer and closer to accomplishing her grand plans of eradicating human existence once and for all. As Nami works with a team of rebels to bring down Ophelia and save the humans under her imprisonment, she is forced to reckon with her past, her future, and what it is that truly makes us human. From award-winning author Akemi Dawn Bowman comes an incisive, action-packed tale that explores big questions about technology, grief, love, and humanity.
By Cyn's Workshop5 years ago in Geeks
Review of 'The Queen's Secret'
Description From #1 bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz comes the heart-pounding follow-up to The Queen's Assassin, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo and Holly Black. Lilac's birthright makes her the Queen of Renovia, and a forced marriage made her the Queen of Montrice. But being a ruler does not mean making the rules. For Lilac, taking the throne means giving up the opportunity to be with love of her life, the kingdom's assassin, Caledon Holt. Worse, Cal is forced to leave the castle when a horrific set of magical attacks threatens Lilac's sovereignty. Now Cal and Lilac will have to battle dark forces separately, even though being together is the only thing that's ever saved them. In the riveting conclusion to Melissa De La Cruz's fantasy duet, love and magic are at war, and victory rests on a knife's edge.
By Cyn's Workshop5 years ago in Geeks
Review of ‘After the Fire’
A gripping and unforgettable story of survival after life in a cult, inspired by the survivors of the Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas, 1993. The things I've seen are burned into me, like scars that refuse to fade. Before, she lived inside a fence with her family. After, she's trapped, now in a federal facility. Before, she was never allowed to leave the property, never allowed to talk to Outsiders, never allowed to speak her mind. After, there are too many people asking questions, wanting to know what happened to her, trying to find out who she really is. Before, she thought she was being protected from something. After, people are telling her that now she's finally safe. She isn't sure what's better, before or after, all she knows is that there are questions she can't answer, and if everything she's been told is a lie, how can she know who's telling the truth now?
By Cyn's Workshop5 years ago in Geeks
Review of 'The Queen's Assassin'
Caledon Holt is the Kingdom of Renovia's deadliest weapon. No one alive can best him in brawn or brains, which is why he's the Guild's most dangerous member and the Queen's one and only assassin. He's also bound to the Queen by an impossible vow--to find the missing Deian Scrolls, the fount of all magical history and knowledge, stolen years ago by a nefarious sect called the Aphrasians. Shadow has been training all her life to follow in the footsteps of her mother and aunts--to become skilled enough to join the ranks of the Guild. Though magic has been forbidden since the Aphrasian uprising, Shadow has been learning to control her powers in secret, hoping that one day she'll become an assassin as feared and revered as Caledon Holt. When a surprise attack brings Shadow and Cal together, they're forced to team up as assassin and apprentice to hunt down a new sinister threat to Renovia. But as Cal and Shadow grow closer, they'll uncover a shocking web of lies and secrets that may destroy everything they hold dear. With war on the horizon and true love at risk, they'll stop at nothing to protect each other and their kingdom in this stunning first novel in the Queen's Secret series.
By Cyn's Workshop5 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'City of the Uncommon Thief'
A dark and intricate fantasy, City of the Uncommon Thief is the story of a quarantined city gripped by fear and of the war that can free it. Guilders work. Foundlings scrub the bogs. Needles bind. Swords tear. And men leave. There is nothing uncommon in this city. I hope Errol Thebes is dead. We both know he is safer that way. In a walled city of a mile-high iron guild towers, many things are common knowledge: No book in any of the city's libraries reveals its place on a calendar or a map. No living beasts can be found within the city's walls. And no good comes to the guilder or foundling who trespasses too far from their labors. Even on the tower rooftops, where Errol Thebes and the rest of the city's teenagers pass a few short years under an open sky, no one truly believes anything uncommon is possible within the city walls. But one guildmaster has broken tradition to protect her child, and now the whole city faces an uncommon threat: a pair of black iron spikes that has the power of both sword and needle on the rib cages of men has gone missing, but the mayhem they cause rises everywhere. If the spikes are not found, no wall will be high enough to protect the city--or the world beyond it. And Errol Thebes? He's not dead and he's certainly not safe.
By Cyn's Workshop5 years ago in Futurism
Review of ‘Magic Dark and Strange’
The Bone Witch meets Sherlock Holmes in this thrilling historical fantasy about a girl with the ability to raise the dead who must delve into her city's dangerous magical underworld to stop a series of murders. Catherine Daly has an unusual talent. By day she works for a printer. But by night, she awakens the dead for a few precious moments with loved ones seeking a final goodbye. But this magic comes with a price: for every hour that a ghost is brought back, Catherine loses an hour from her own life. When Catherine is given the unusual task of collecting a timepiece from an old grave, she is sure that the mysterious item must contain some kind of enchantment. So she enlists Guy Nolan, the watchmaker's son, to help her dig it up. But instead of a timepiece, they find a surprise: the body of a teenage boy. And as they watch, he comes back to life--not as the pale imitation that Catherine can conjure, but as a living, breathing boy. A boy with no memory of his past. This magic is more powerful than any Catherine has ever encountered, and revealing it brings dangerous enemies. Catherine and Guy must race to unravel the connection between the missing timepiece and the undead boy. For this mysterious magic could mean the difference between life and death--for all of them.
By Cyn's Workshop5 years ago in Geeks
Review of 'Those Who Prey'
College life isn't what Emily expected. She expected to spend freshman year strolling through the ivy-covered campus with new friends, finally feeling like she belonged. Instead, she walks the campus alone, still not having found her place or her people so far away from home. But then the Kingdom finds her. The Kingdom, an exclusive on-campus group, offers everything Emily expected out of college and more: acceptance, friends, a potential boyfriend, and a chance to spend the summer on a mission trip to Italy. But the trip is not what she thought it would be. Emily and the others are stripped of their passports and money. They're cut off from their families back home. The Kingdom's practices become increasingly manipulative and dangerous... And someone ends up dead.
By Cyn's Workshop5 years ago in Geeks
Review of 'This Golden Flame'
Orphaned and forced to serve her country's ruling group of scribes, Karis wants nothing more than to find her brother, long ago shipped away. But family bonds don't matter to the Scriptorium, whose sole focus is unlocking the magic of an ancient automaton army. In her search for her brother, Karis does the seemingly impossible--she awakens a hidden automaton. Intelligent, with a conscience of his own, Alix has no idea why he was made. Or why his father--their nation's greatest traitor--once tried to destroy the automatons. Suddenly, the Scriptorium isn't just trying to control Karis; it's hunting her. Together with Alix, Karis must find her brother...and the secret that's held her country in its power for centuries.
By Cyn's Workshop5 years ago in Geeks
