Tag: enemies to lovers

“Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders… but her father isn’t a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has loaned out most of his wife’s dowry and left the family on the edge of poverty–until Miryem steps in. Hardening her heart against her fellow villagers’ pleas, she sets out to collect what is owed–and finds herself more than up to the task. When her grandfather loans her a pouch of silver pennies, she brings it back full of gold.

But having the reputation of being able to change silver to gold can be more trouble than it’s worth–especially when her fate becomes tangled with the cold creatures that haunt the wood, and whose king has learned of her reputation and wants to exploit it for reasons Miryem cannot understand.“ GOODREADS

This is the best book I read in 2018. It’s eerie, fairy-tale like and romantic. Naomi Novik is definitely one of my all-time favorite writers. I love love love her portrayal of girls and women and their relationships with each other. Both her main and supporting characters are fleshed out and equally engaging to read about.

The story revolves around two heroines whose fates intertwine more and more as the plot unfolds. Their male love interests (one is the king of some kind of ice elves, the other the tsar who’s possessed by a fire demon) learn to appreciate and love them for their characters, skills and actions.

Spinning Silver features almost every trope I love:

  • heroines who are capable instead of beautiful 
  • enemies to lovers 
  • arranged marriage
  • villainous crush

SKYFARER
(The
Drifting Lands #1) by
Joseph Brassey

An
apprentice sorceress is dragged into a vicious quest across an
endless sky in this Star Wars-inspired space fantasy

The
Axiom Diamond is a mythical relic, with the power to show its bearer
any truth they desire. Men have sought for it across many continents
for centuries, but in vain. When trainee sorceress Aimee de Laurent’s
first ever portal-casting goes awry, she and her mentor are thrown
into the race to find the gem, on the skyship Elysium.
Opposing them are the infamous magic-wielding knights of the Eternal
Order and their ruthless commander, Lord Azrael, who will destroy
everything in their path…

This could have been the perfect novel with heavy Reylo vibes but unfortunately….it was not. Usually I only recommend stuff I really like so this post ist a bit different. It’s just that it had so much potential but realized none of it. I’m just bemoaning what could have been…

I
remember that somebody recommended Skyfarer here on tumblr on a post
about books with a Reylo vibe. It definitely has some really strong
Star Wars vibes and arguably also a heroine/villain interaction that resembles the Reylo dynamic but unfortunately without
any of the nuance and layered characterization the real on-screen
Reylo has. For me it left an impression of TFA fan fiction
for an exclusive audience of twelve year old boys.


Ok,
lets check the similarities:

  • genre:
    science fantasy (some cool world building here, no planets but
    drifting lands like a universe full of flat earths, navigation
    between these lands requires sorcery)
  • some
    McGuffin needs to be chased
  • lots
    of fight scenes and battles (skipped most of them, enjoy them in
    movies, in books not so much)
  • First
    Eternal Order (evil)
  • some
    kind of Snoke who messes with the head of his protege and right
    hand:
  • Lord
    Azrael, Not His Real Name (= off brand Kylo Ren, complete with mask
    and good hair)
  • really
    buff Hux (actually more chemistry between him and Lord Azrael than
    the real Kylux, the impending hate sex was practically oozing off
    the pages)
  • a
    Phasma (really cool looking female warrior, absolutely useless
    plotwise)
  • legacy
    sword
  • a
    lukelike (ha!) character who is awesome and cool and loves mentoring
    his student and is probably everything the TLJ haters wish for (…)
  • rich,
    blonde Rey
  • force
    bond     mind link between the heroine and the villain

The
plot was…ok I guess (mostly chasing and fighting).

The
characterization was abysmal. Almost all the characters were
cardboard cutouts. Only Lord Azrael/the villain has something resembling actual 
characterization and back-story going on. It’s still a far cry from the complexity
of Kylo Ren.

The
most disappointing character is Aimee. If I’d have to describe her
I wouldn’t be able to come up with more than blonde, pretty and
overconfident (she’s acing all the sorcery stuff). Her backstory is
being rich and overconfident, also her blonde hair features a lot in
her past. Her character arc takes her from being a pretty
overconfident blonde to fucking up one time (but not really as it
later turns out) which leaves her less overconfident for a short
period of time until she regains her overconfidence. Oh, and she has
compassion for the very redeemable villain because they do some kind
of force bonding. Aimee is presented as a main character yet
characterized like a trophy girlfriend. Now compare that to actual
Rey… (This book was written by a man in case you couldn’t tell
by now.)

I
know it’s a bit unfair to compare this book to actual Reylo in
actual Star Wars but that was the sole reason I picked it up and the
similarities were so blatant as I continued reading I really couldn’t
help myself. It certainly made me appreciate characterization in Star
Wars even more.

claudiagray:

thepaige-turner:

ig: thepaige_turner

It’s DEFY THE WORLDS launch day! Hit your local bookstore to find out what happens next for Abel and Noemi. Separated by the Liberty War for the independence of planet Genesis, Abel and Noemi have an entire galaxy between them. When Earth strikes at Genesis through biological warfare, however, Noemi is forced to venture back into the greater galaxy in an attempt to find help. But doing so puts her incredible danger–from which only Abel may be able to save her. Yet Abel knows that stepping forward to help means exposing himself to his creator, Burton Mansfield, who will stop at nothing to reclaim Abel for his own. 

Did I mention DEFY THE STARS is $2.99 on all online platforms this week? BECAUSE IT IS. Time to plunge in, people! 

Soldier girl and robot boy are back!!!!

Source: instagram.com

thenovl:

Get ready to DEFY THE STARS on April 4th! Check out an excerpt of Claudia’s new interstellar adventure series over on Entertainment Weekly.  

DEFY THE STARS by Claudia Gray

Noemi Vidal is seventeen years old and sworn to protect her planet, Genesis. She’s willing to risk anything—including her own life. To their enemies on Earth, she’s a rebel.

He’s a machine.

Abandoned in space for years, utterly alone, Abel has advanced programming that’s begun to evolve. He wants only to protect his creator, and to be free. To the people of Genesis, he’s an abomination.

Noemi and Abel are enemies in an interstellar war, forced by chance to work together as they embark on a daring journey through the stars. Their efforts would end the fighting for good, but they’re not without sacrifice. The stakes are even higher than either of them first realized, and the more time they spend together, the more they’re forced to question everything they’d been taught was true.

Check out this book on Goodreads: Defy the Stars (Constellation, #1) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31423196-defy-the-stars

___________________________

There are some pretty strong reylo vibes:

Naomi is capable and strong willed but has almost no sense of self worth. Orphaned at an early age she never had the feeling of truly belonging somewhere. After losing the only person she truly connected with she’s ready to sacrifice herself to change the outcome of a battle to buy her people more time in an ongoing war.

Abel is an android, constructed and groomed to fulfil one specific purpose for his creator. Abandoned for decades on a space ship he knows the meaning of loneliness. Yet when Naomi frees him and his programming demands that he accepts her as his new master his main objective stays the same. Find his true master and seek his approval.

Both Naomi and Abel travel together on a risky mission to turn the outcome of the war. Slowly they find out that they are more than the sum of their parts, more than their upbringing or programming.

Source: thenovl

fuck-yeah-monsters-and-villains:

HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE by Diana Wynne Jones

Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl’s castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there’s far more to Howl—and herself—than first meets the eye.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6294.Howl_s_Moving_Castle

Occasional self reblog.

fuck-yeah-monsters-and-villains:

UPROOTED by Naomi Novik

Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Check out this book on Goodreads: Uprooted https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22544764-uprooted

Occasional self reblog.