P is for Price

I’m doing folklore and book review posts to reach and please a larger audience. Previous years have shown select interest in both and to minimise blogging throughout the year, I’m focusing my efforts on April.

Focusing on an A to Z of my TBR (to be read) list, each letter will have books starting with that letter on my list, a book I’ve read and reviewed (with the review!) and one of my books matching the letter with a link about more info about the book.

I chose the books this year quite randomly from my Goodreads Want to Read page. Some are quite creatively added to letters.

If you’d rather check out my folklore post for today, go here.

You can read reviews for from previous years for this letter here and here, and my year-end reviews here, here, here and, most recently, here.

My TBR

About the Book

The Price Guide to the Occult by Leslye Walton

From the author of The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender comes a haunting maelstrom of magic and murder in the lush, moody Pacific Northwest.

When Rona Blackburn landed on Anathema Island more than a century ago, her otherworldly skills might have benefited friendlier neighbors. Guilt and fear instead led the island’s original eight settlers to burn “the witch” out of her home. So Rona cursed them. Fast-forward one hundred–some years: All Nor Blackburn wants is to live an unremarkable teenage life. She has reason to hope: First, her supernatural powers, if they can be called that, are unexceptional. Second, her love life is nonexistent, which means she might escape the other perverse side effect of the matriarch’s backfiring curse, too. But then a mysterious book comes out, promising to cast any spell for the right price. Nor senses a storm coming and is pretty sure she’ll be smack in the eye of it. In her second novel, Leslye Walton spins a dark, mesmerizing tale of a girl stumbling along the path toward self-acceptance and first love, even as the Price Guide’s malevolent author — Nor’s own mother — looms and threatens to strangle any hope for happiness.

Check it out on Goodreads.

My Review

Though the prologue might seem unnecessary, it informs a lot of things throughout the book and this information was delivered smartly instead of in an info-dump.

I liked the epigraphs that start each chapter. It was a good way to tie it back to Rona Blackburn in the prologue.

The story quickly moved from the realm of dark fantasy to horror as Nor watches plants armour themselves – daffodils with thorns – and then her mother ritualistically murder people.

I liked that Nor could hear the thoughts of animals and listen to their dreams. I also liked that some of the dogs were over a century old. And, of course, it’s awesome that no animals were harmed in this story.

The mysteries, action and pace keeps one reading far longer than intended. LOL. Vivid descriptions and a close look at Nor’s feelings, making one bond with her instantly, leads to one being immersed in the story until the very end.

Nor is so broken at the beginning, but by confronting her fears, she grows throughout the story into someone darkness fears.

A good story with an ending open to new adventures. A dark story, but filled with hope.

Trigger warnings: self-harm, blood, blood sacrifice, child abuse, language.

My Book

Power Players of Faerie (Origin of the Fae #3)

Remember that you can request all of my books from your local library!

I hope you enjoyed this. For more books I’ve read and reviewed, check out either my Pinterest board about reviews or my Goodreads profile. Alternatively, you can check out my reviews on BookBub. Have you read any of the books? Loved or hated any of them?

You can now support my time in producing book review posts (buying books, reading, writing reviews and everything else involved) by buying me a coffee. This can be a once-off thing, or you can buy me coffee again in the future at your discretion.

*FYI, my reviews are my honest opinion and if something bothers me, I tell it straight. How else will anything change? My opinions are based on being a voracious reader and book buyer, not an attack on the author.*

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