I had been wanting to read this novella since the cover was revealed because it’s beauuuuutiful. After finishing, it is almost more beautiful because you know the significance of the different animals that are depicted. This novella tells the tale of the titular Empress of Salt and Fortune, and what her life was like.

Guess what? Yes, it’s my birthday! I was looking for fun tags to do and I found this one from Antonia @ Always Books. So let’s get started!

1) Birthday Cake (A book with a plot that seems cliché but you adore it anyway)

Hmm I think it’s not so much the plot – because that was pretty novel – but the general idea of urban fantasy, and the kickass heroine. But the Kate Daniels series! I think the basic idea of warrior girl fights bad guys and there’s werewolves and vampires is a pretty cliché premise, but oh man you guys! This series is so much more than that basic premise. Even the werewolves and vampires are totally not like what you’d think. And Kate herself is THE BEST. So yeah. I love this series haha. Also – there’s nothing wrong with loving cliché things!

Thank you to Tor Books (via NetGalley) for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

FIRST OF ALL – look at the blurb okay?? “This book is very close to perfect.” – Seanan McGuire AKA MY QUEEN. How could anyone NOT want to read this book based on that alone?? Okay fine, if that wasn’t enough, then this bit from the synopsis might reel you in:

“…he’s given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist.”

To me that is like the perfect cast of characters haha. And Linus himself! He’s such a softie – albeit a boring one at the onset of the book. But wow does he grow into himself! This book is truly a shining example of a character driven novel – and after reading about 20% of it, I knew it would go on my list of favorite books. It was a true joy to read, and made my heart all warm and fuzzy.

Retellings are hugely popular in young adult books these days. I love them, but I’m getting tired of the same fairytale being redone over and over. So thank goodness I finally picked up this one! This is a retelling of the longest epic poem ever, the Indian poem called The Mahabharata. I don’t know much about the original, except what I read on Wikipedia. Knowing that it’s a non-Western retelling kinda makes me love it already without reading it haha.

Another thing that intrigued me right away was that the gods and goddesses were a part of the story. I loooove that so much. It also means that since this is set in space, it is a space fantasy! Aka my favorite genre! And in my opinion, a genre we need a lot more of.

You might remember that I’ve been participating in the Pondathon, a collaborative readathon hosted by CW @ The Quiet Pond. If you don’t follow them, YOU SHOULD. There are different characters that inhabit the pond, and each of them features different sorts of things!

Anyway, one of the features of this readalong is that there are side quests you can complete. In each quest you help the different members of The Quiet Pond with various tasks. For the most recent side quest, to get a bonus reward item we were asked to make a post about a book that helped us through a hard time. I talked about an important book to me on my Twitter, but there are so many that are dear to my heart. So I thought I’d make a blog post about it as well!