Tag: stalking shadows

Monthly Wrap Ups

September Wrap-Up

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Happy Friday everyone! I’ll be putting up three posts today and this is the first of them. It’s a day or two late but I’m finally getting around to doing my September wrap-up.

So, the month of September was super busy for me and a lot of things happened. First, I moved in with my partner on the first of September and it has been quite the month getting used to living with someone new and learning how they are. This month I also found out that I have gotten onto the PhD that I wanted and now I’m just waiting for when I’m going to start. And finally, I found out that I got a distinction on my Master’s Dissertation.

As I said last month, I’m very surprised I read as much as I did this month, the only problem is that hardly any of the books that I read were from my TBR…. I’m sure you can guess that I didn’t finish my TBR. So, let’s get straight into what I did and didn’t read this month.

September TBR and Thoughts:

  • A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder by Holly Jackson – we are starting off well, I did read this one and I have posted my review of it.
  • All the Stars and Teeth by Adalyn Grace – I did not read
  • Assassins Apprentice by Robin Hobb – I did not read
  • Lore by Alexandra Bracken – I didn’t read this one either
  • The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern – I wish I had gotten around to this one but unfortunately I didn’t
  • Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty – I did not read
  • Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim – I did not read
  • Six Tudor Queens Katherine of Aragon by Alison Weir – I did not read
  • The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White – I did not read
  • The Switch by Beth O’Leary – I did not read

So… I only actually read one book from my TBR but I did read these nine other books:

  • Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain
  • The Woman in the Wood by M K Hill
  • The Crime Archives
  • The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
  • The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
  • The Chateau by Catherine Cooper
  • The Curry Compendium by Richard Sayce
  • Stalking Shadows by Cyla Panin
  • The Dinner Party by Sarah Gilmartin

That’s it for my wrap-up for September! I managed to read ten books which I am pretty happy with. I hope you all enjoyed it!

blog tours, Book Reviews

Book Review: Stalking Shadows by Cyla Panin

theblindscribe

Happy Friday bookish people! Today I’m excited to be bringing you a book review of Stalking Shadows by Cyla Panin as my stop on the book tour. Thank you to TBR Tours and Beyond and Cyla Panin for sending me an ecopy of this book to read and review.

In this book review I will give star ratings to four categories and I will write a little about each one. I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I hope you enjoy my book review.

Stalking Shadows Plot:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

I had heard that this book is a different take on the Beauty and the Beast retelling so I knew instantly that I wanted to read it. Anything that is even slightly reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast interests me. I loved the eerie Gothic feel to this book, it was most prominent in the settings but the whole book was filled with mystery and tension. I enjoyed the mystery and the slight creepyness of it, one thing I wanted more of was the action, I felt the story was too slow-paced for my liking and I would have liked some more intriguing events.

Stalking Shadows Characters:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I really enjoyed the personality of the main character, Marie, she is very caring and brave and loyal to her sister. One of my favourite things about this book is the connection between the sisters, in this book they are the Beauty and the Beast rather than a love interest which was a nice change, there aren’t too many books with such a focus on the sibling relationship and having a sister myself I really felt I could put myself in Marie’s shoes.

Stalking Shadows Writing and Dialogue:

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

The writing in this book is very detailed and atmospheric, it helped to build up the plot layer by layer. I personally felt there was a tiny bit too much foreshadowing which sort of gave away the ending before it happened.

Stalking Shadows Overall:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

I gave this book three stars overall because, although it is a very enjoyable YA debut read, I felt like I wanted a little more from the book than what it gave me.

Blurb/Synopsis:

A gothic YA fantasy debut about a young woman striving to break her sister’s curse and stop the killing in her small French town

Seventeen-year-old Marie mixes perfumes to sell on market day in her small eighteenth-century French town. She wants to make enough to save a dowry for her sister, Ama, in hopes of Ama marrying well and Marie living in the level of freedom afforded only to spinster aunts. But her perfumes are more than sweet scents in cheap, cut-glass bottles: A certain few are laced with death. Marie laces the perfume delicately—not with poison but with a hint of honeysuckle she’s trained her sister to respond to. Marie marks her victim, and Ama attacks. But she doesn’t attack as a girl. She kills as a beast.

Marking Ama’s victims controls the damage to keep suspicion at bay. But when a young boy turns up dead one morning, Marie is forced to acknowledge she might be losing control of Ama. And if she can’t control her, she’ll have to cure her. Marie knows the only place she’ll find the cure is in the mansion where Ama was cursed in the first place, home of Lord Sebastien LeClaire. But once she gets into the mansion, she discovers dark secrets hidden away—secrets of the curse, of Lord Sebastien . . . and of herself.

About the Author:

Cyla Panin is an MG, YA and Adult author who prefers to look at the world through a dusting of magic. After spending most of her childhood wanting to escape into the wonderful worlds her favourite author’s created, she’s now using her own words to craft magical places. When not writing, Cyla can be found playing dinosaurs with her two young boys, watching swashbuckling and/or period TV shows with her husband and, of course, reading.

Her YA debut, Stalking Shadows will be out with Amulet, Abrams Fall 2021. She is represented by Chloe Seager of the Madelaine Milburn Literary, TV and Film agency.

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/stalking-shadows-cyla-panin/1138773828

Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stalking-Shadows-Cyla-Panin/dp/1419752650

Blackwells: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Stalking-Shadows-by-Cyla-Panin/9781419752650

Tour schedule: https://tbrandbeyondtours.com/2021/08/19/tour-schedule-stalking-shadows-by-cyla-panin/

That’s it for this book review, I hope you all enjoyed it!