Others: Positive The clock chimes midnight, a curse breaks, and a girl meets a prince…but what follows is not all sweetness and sugarplums. New York City, 1899. Clara Stole, the mayor’s ever-proper daughter, leads a double life. Since her mother’s murder, she has secretly trained in self-defense with the mysterious Drosselmeyer. Then, on Christmas Eve, disaster strikes. Her home is destroyed, her father abducted—by beings distinctly not human. To find him, Clara journeys to the war-ravaged land of Cane. Her only companion is the dethroned prince Nicholas, bound by a wicked curse. If they’re to survive, Clara has no choice but to trust him, but his haunted eyes burn with secrets—and a need she can’t define. With the dangerous, seductive faery queen Anise hunting them, Clara soon realizes she won’t leave Cane unscathed—if she leaves at all. Inspired by The Nutcracker, Winterspell is a dark, timeless fairy tale about love and war, longing and loneliness, and a girl who must learn to live without fear.
Genres: fantasy, romance, historical fiction, young adult
Lists: …
Saara El-Arifi
2022 · 608 pages · 3 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveRed is the blood of the elite, of magic, of control. Blue is the blood of the poor, of workers, of the resistance. Clear is the blood of the slaves, of the crushed, of the invisible. Sylah dreams of days growing up in the resistance, being told she would spark a revolution that would free the empire from the red-blooded ruling classes’ tyranny. That spark was extinguished the day she watched her family murdered before her eyes. Anoor has been told she’s nothing, no one, a disappointment, by the only person who matters: her mother, the most powerful ruler in the empire. But when Sylah and Anoor meet, a fire burns between them that could consume the kingdom—and their hearts. Hassa moves through the world unseen by upper classes, so she knows what it means to be invisible. But invisibility has its uses: It can hide the most dangerous of secrets, secrets that can reignite a revolution. And when she joins forces with Sylah and Anoor, together these grains of sand will become a storm. As the empire begins a set of trials of combat and skill designed to find its new leaders, the stage is set for blood to flow, power to shift, and cities to burn. Book One of The Ending Fire Trilogy
What made the match, strongest first
Cassandra Clare
2013 · 576 pages · 21 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveIf the only way to save the world was to destroy what you loved most, would you do it? The clock is ticking. Everyone must choose.
What made the match, strongest first
Tasha Suri
2021 · 512 pages · 14 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveAuthor of Empire of Sand and Realm of Ash Tasha Suri's The Jasmine Throne, beginning a new trilogy set in a world inspired by the history and epics of India, in which a captive princess and a maidservant in possession of forbidden magic become unlikely allies on a dark journey to save their empire from the princess's traitor brother. Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of the powerful, magical deathless waters — but is now little more than a decaying ruin. Priya is a maidservant, one among several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the Hirana every night to clean Malini’s chambers. She is happy to be an anonymous drudge, so long as it keeps anyone from guessing the dangerous secret she hides. But when Malini accidentally bears witness to Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled. One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne. The other is a priestess seeking to find her family. Together, they will change the fate of an empire.
What made the match, strongest first
Renée Ahdieh
2015 · 404 pages · 20 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveEvery dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a terrible surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi's wit and will get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch . . . she may be falling in love with a murderer.
What made the match, strongest first
Makiia Lucier
2024 · 2 reviews
Others: PositiveIn the old tales, it is written that the egg of a seadragon, dragonfruit, holds within it the power to undo a person’s greatest sorrow. But as with all things that offer hope when hope had gone, the tale came with a warning. Every wish demands a price. Hanalei of Tamarind is the cherished daughter of an old island family. But when her father steals a seadragon egg meant for an ailing princess, she is forced into a life of exile. In the years that follow, Hanalei finds solace in studying the majestic seadragons that roam the Nominomi Sea. Until, one day, an encounter with a female dragon offers her what she desires most. A chance to return home, and to right a terrible wrong. Samahtitamahenele, Sam, is the last remaining prince of Tamarind. But he can never inherit the throne, for Tamarind is a matriarchal society. With his mother ill and his grandmother nearing the end of her reign. Sam is left with two choices: to marry, or to find a cure for the sickness that has plagued his mother for ten long years. When a childhood companion returns from exile, she brings with her something he has not felt in a very long time—hope. But Hanalei and Sam are not the only ones searching for the dragonfruit. And as they battle enemies both near and far, there is another danger they cannot escape… that of the dragonfruit itself.
What made the match, strongest first
Cassandra Clare
2019 · 624 pages · 16 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveCordelia Carstairs is a Shadowhunter, a warrior with the blood of the angel Raziel. When her father is accused of a crime, she, her mother, and her brother travel to London, where she hopes to prove his innocence. She soon encounters James and Lucie Herondale, her childhood friends, and is drawn into their exciting, glittering, world. All the while she must hide her love for James, who is sworn to marry someone else. All this is interrupted by a series of demon attacks unlike anything the Shadowhunters have ever seen. They poison whoever they touch, can walk in daylight, and are all but impossible to kill. When London is quarantined, Cordelia and her friends face a horrible choice that will reveal the price of being a hero.
What made the match, strongest first
Loved itI honestly I could reread this to be honest. , but it's it's very of its time because it was when YA was doing a lot of the fairy tale retellings... And this was interesting cuz it was kind of like a very like toxic interesting like relationship thing, which is what she does really well.
