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Blog Tour Review - The House on Blood Street by Josh Hanson

 Blog Tour Review - The House on Blood Street by Josh Hanson Jack and Avery’s new home on Calliope Street is a fixer-upper’s dream.  The lurid collage of pornographic clippings on the basement wall seems  like a quirky (and campy) feature. But once the  house awakens, what seemed harmless becomes as horrifying as the blood  seeping from the carpet. The house is alive. It is intelligent. And it  demands homage. The House on Blood Street is a very weird and pretty darned creepy horror story. It is beautifully written. Throughout, the language, the imagery and the sense of tension and threat are all exquisite. The presentation is stunning too, a glorious, shiny hardback with lovely sprayed edges, everything about it evoking the horror movies it riffs off of. There's a poetry to the language, and it is full of references to poets, myths and songs, that give it a depth and power. I love the characters too. The relationship between Jack and Avery feels very real,...

Review - We Are Bound By Stars by Kesia Lupo

Review - We Are Bound By Stars by Kesia Lupo

On a mysterious island where the very earth holds magic, masked assassins plague the city and strange creatures rise from the desert. Livio has riled against his destiny his whole life. Beatrice longs to escape her life of servitude. But when a twist of fate unites them, it is up to them to stop a deadly revolution.

Are they just puppets in someone else's game? Will they have to accept the hands they have been dealt or can either change their fortunes?



I really enjoyed We Are Bound By Stars.

It's a fast paced, exciting political fantasy, one of my favourite subgenres. 

The magic system was interesting, with a lot of the intricacies left unexplained, the book focused on explaining the most relevant areas and this worked really well for me. 

The same principle applies to the political factions. It felt like there was a lot going on in the background that wasn't made explicitly clear, particularly the different temples, but this never detracted from the plot and lengthy exposition would have just slowed the book down too much. 

The battle for control of Scarossa was instead told with pace and vigour, making for a thrilling ride.

The twists and turns of the plot were expertly done, and the whole thing was full of intrigue and mystery. The threats and peril felt real and deadly and the elements of feminist authority and gay romance were both welcome touches, lightly applied as they were.

We Were Bound By Stars sacrifices extensive lore dumps for a fast paced narrative full of threat and intrigue, and is a great fantasy novel for it.

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗

We Are Bound By Stars by Kesia Lupo is out now, published by Bloomsbury

I was given a review copy via Netgalley in return for an honest review.

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