Ally Aldridge Adult, Age, Book Genre, Books, Childrens, Dystopia, Ememies to Lovers, Fae, Fairy Tale, Fantasy, Fiction, Mermaid or Siren, Middle Grade, My Books, Mythology, Ocean Heart, Poetry, Review, Romance, Shifters, Uncategorized, Young Adult

Mermaid Reads for Mermay

As an author of a mermaid novel, I am always interested in other books about mermaids, sirens, and selkies. Today, I shall highlight some to show how different these stories are and why I recommend them. Here are some of my favourites.

Rhyming Children’s Tale

If you want a quick light hearted read, then Seal Mother by Rose English is a good choice. This book is inspired by local mythology and told in verse. It is suitable for young children but adults will enjoy it too.

Book Review: Seal Mother by Rose English – Ally Aldridge

Found-Family Fairytale

If you love stories with a fairytale vibe, and found family, then check out The Meramid’s Sister by Carrie Ann Noble. This story is about two sisters, who were found in unusual ways and adopted by their mum who cannot leave her home due to a curse.

When the mermaid sister gets ill, the other sister has to take on the task of returning her to the sea with the help of a family friend and his wagon. This story is full of charms and curses, a sisterly bond, and first love. It has the same energy as Stardust by Neil Gailman.

Book Review: The Mermaid’s Sister by Carrie Anne Noble – Ally Aldridge

LGBT Mermaid Graphic Novel

This is a sweet Young Adult Graphic Novel by Molly Knox Ostertag called The Girl from the Sea. The main character is dealing with a lot of coming of age issues in her life, but is able to find comfort in Keltie.

Keltie isn’t an ordinary girl, she once was a Selkie but after the girls sharing a kiss she was able to stay on land. The main character is struggles to come out to her friends and family about her girlfriend. This sweet graphic novel has a happy ending and the art is beautiful.

Book Review: The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag – Ally Aldridge

Dystopian Mermaid

If you love dystopian fiction, then The Seawomen by Chloe Timms is worth checking out. It is described as being the Handmaid’s Tale with mermaids. Basically, the main character lives in religious patriarchy society where anything that goes wrong from weather to disease, is blamed on the women. Men can do no wrong.

There is a rule that women cannot look at the sea but one day the main character is being chased by boys with ill intentions and knows that if they catch her and have their way, she will be blamed for it. She takes a risk to escape them and hides by the sea, leading to her uncovering a big secret that starts to unravel all the lies she’s grown up with.

Book Review: The Seawomen by Chloe Timms – Ally Aldridge

Steamy Mermaid Romantasy

Meraki by Naomi Kelly is about a sexy Warlord and a Syren. King Kellan is the descendant of a god and decides that he needs to capture a syren, then use her to defeat his enemy. The syren he captures in Wren, a syren on the run from her past.

The pair start off hating each other, but sparks soon fly leading to a steamy enemies to lovers type story. This is the first book in a duology and I’ve always meant to read the next book but not got around to it.

Book Review: Meraki by Naomi Kelly – Ally Aldridge

Mermaid Shifter Romantasy

Of course, there is my novel, Ocean Heart by Ally Aldridge. It is the first book in the Young Adult Soul Heart series and features a teen mermaid shifter. Ocean Heart has a strong romance plot with the main character torn between her crush on her male BFF and being perused by the hot swim team stud that rubs her up the wrong way. Her messy love life is what wakes up her dormant deadly mermaid powers, and now she is trying to keep her powers under control before someone gets killed.

More Mermraid Books

There are plenty more that are worth a mention:

Middle Grade Under the Sea School: Book Review: Mermaid School – Ally Aldridge

Little Mermaid Retelling: Book Review: Balanced Scales by Laura Greenwood – Ally Aldridge

Little Mermaid Retelling: Book Review: Sea Witch by Sarah Henning – Ally Aldridge

Graphic Novel on a Ship: Book Review: Sailor Twain by Mark Siegel – Ally Aldridge

Young Adult Mermaid World: Book Review: Tenebrasco by Hannah Reed – Ally Aldridge

Fae Fiction: Book Review: Never Date a Siren by Byrd Nash – Ally Aldridge

Robots and Fantasy Adventure: Book Review: The Steel Princess by April Grace – Ally Aldridge

Ally Aldridge Bad Boy, Books, Dystopia, Fantasy, Fated Lovers, Fiction, Review, Romance, Sci-Fi, Super Powers, Young Adult

Book Review: The Guidal – Saving Light by Roxy Eloise

This is book three in The Guidal series.

Wow! This was another amazing book in the series. There is even more magic in this one!

The book starts with Aurora disconnected from her feelings. This makes her less sensitive to the feelings of Pax & Tayo, and unable to use her powers. Don’t worry, her friends stick by her despite her trying to push them away, and they help her reconnect.

Meanwhile, we get to see more of the Kamalayans and the stakes rise. Aurora starts having dreams about the first Guidal and this reveals some of the history.

Beware, in this book Aurora suffers some hard losses. One that left me internally screaming NOOOOO at the book!

A lot happens in this book, and I’m desperate for the next one in the series. Really hoping for the return of a certain character.

You can buy this book from Amazon.

Book one in the series is The Guidal: Discovering Puracordis and book two in the series is The Guidal: Unearthing Secrets

Discover The Guidal

You can buy book one (Discovering Puracordis) and book two (Unearthing Secrets) from Amazon too.

Book Review: The Guidal – Discovering Puracordis by Roxy Eloise
Book Review: The Guidal: Unearthing Secrets by Roxy Eloise

If you like the sound of this book, you might also like these:

Ally Aldridge Adult, Age, Books, Dystopia, Review, Young Adult

Book Review: Knife Edge by Malorie Blackman

This book was a page-turner. Sometimes it felt like a thriller, as I knew Jude’s true dark intentions. He reminded me of that guy from You, except there was no love or protection in his twisted thoughts. He just cold.

It was sad to see Sephy unravel. The way it hurt her to hang onto hope that not everyone was bad, wanting to see the good in others, but consistently being proven wrong. It took its toll.

The ending was a shock. I replayed it several times to try and make sense of it. It ended again with another tragedy. My heart felt heavy with all that had happened.

I think I will read more of the series, but this was a sad story, and I need a little time to process how this book made me feel.

Ally Aldridge Bad Boy, Book Genre, Books, Contemporary, Dystopia, Future, Horror, Review, Romance, Suspense, Young Adult

Book Review: The Toll by Neal Shusterman

This post contains affiliate links. Please check out my affiliate disclosure page for more information.

About the book

The Toll blurb

My thoughts

This was an incredible read. I’d no idea what to expect but it was better than anything I could imagine. It is violent and bloody, but the story explores our morals.

Set in the future, death is no longer a problem. If you were to become deadish, you can be revived. To restore the balance a group called Scythes take on the sacred duty of gleaming (killing) life. They have quotas and rules to follow.

Teenagers Roman and Citra both (on seperate occasions) meet Scythe Faraday on a gleaming job. Their interactions with him stand out and he makes them his apprentice. Never before has a Scythe taken on two apprentices and there’s no rule against it. Still, it causes uproar and an edict is agreed that when one of them passes their apprenticeship, their first task will be to kill the other.

Scythe Faraday blames himself for putting Citra & Rowan in this position. He gleams himself to free them from the apprenticeship, but instead two other Scythes step forward to train them.

Rowan is taken on by Scythe Goddard who has a reputation for his blood lust, enjoying massacres to hit his quotas.

Citra is taken on by the famous Grande Madam of Death, Scythe Curie. She shows compassion to the family members of those gleamed.

Now the pair have very different apprenticeship experiences. Citra doesn’t believe Scythe Faraday’s death was an accident, and her inquisitive mind gets her in trouble.

Meanwhile, Rowan’s training involves parties and mass killings as Scythe Goddard tries to encourage him to find joy in kill craft. Goddard’s cruel methods push Rowan too far and he is no longer the boy he started out as.

The story continues to move toward the final conclave where they’ll both have to pass their last test. Passing the test will means one of them gets ordained and must kill the other. Despite all that has happened since Faraday, they still care deeply about each other. Both are plotting for a loop hole in the edict.

This was a brilliant story. There is a lot of death as they are Scythes, but the twists and surprises in the story is what makes you gasp and need to read another chapter!

Read it for a story full of twists and surprises, and to explore ideas of mortality and morals. Don’t read it if you don’t like blood, gore, or sensitive about death.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

You can buy this book from:

Amazon: The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) https://amzn.eu/d/eMwAIU2

<script
src=”https://uk.bookshop.org/widgets.js”
data-type=”book”
data-affiliate-id=”1425″
data-sku=”9781406385670″></script>

<script
src=”https://uk.bookshop.org/widgets.js”
data-type=”list”
data-list-slug=”dystopia”></script>

If you enjoyed this, check out this:

Book Review: Scythe by Neal Shusterman
Book Review: Brave New Girl by Rachel Vincent

[Kofi]

Ally Aldridge Bad Boy, Book Genre, Books, Dystopia, Fiction, Forbidden, Review, Romance, Young Adult

Book Review: Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman

This post contains affiliate links. Please check out my affiliate disclosure page for more information.

About the book

The Thunderhead blurb

My thoughts

This is book two in the series and follows on from book one. The book is named after the global AI operating system that runs the world. This isn’t any ordinary computer, and is a character within the series as much as any human

Book one ended with Citra’s and Rowan’s apprenticeship coming to an end and following their new lives. Citra is now the Scythe Anastasia, and Rowan is in hiding.

Anastasia has chosen to stay with Curie and is making her own mark as a Scythe. When an attack is made on their lives they realise they are not safe. The obvious attacked would be Scythe Lucifer who has been murdering Scythes. Anastasia knows this is not so, because Lucifer is Rowan and she trusts he’d never target her.

We are also introduced to Grayson who had a special relationship with The Thunderhead. He becomes Slayd, an unsavoury, in a secret undercover mission that goes wrong.

Meanwhile Scythe Rand has an evil plan to bring back Scythe Goddard, and in a way that will punish Rowan for his betrayal.

All their stories come together for a truly epic ending that I didn’t see coming. This brilliant crafted world is destroyed by the end. Once again Citra & Rowan out smart their enemies plan but it was still a dire conclusion- for them not the reader.

The only unresolved story line was a side plot involving Scythe Faraday, searching for The Land of Nod – a fictional place sung about in a nursery rhymes. I wonder if there will be more to this in the next book. I expect book three will see Citra & Rowan free of their predicament and once again facing Goddard.

Read it for twists and turns, and out smarting the bad guys. Don’t read it if you don’t like blood, gore, or sensitive about death.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

You can buy this book from:

Amazon: Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe) https://amzn.eu/d/hDbE0P1

<script
src=”https://uk.bookshop.org/widgets.js”
data-type=”book”
data-affiliate-id=”1425″
data-sku=”9781406379532″></script>

If you enjoyed this, check out this:

Books
Book Review: Brave New Girl by Rachel Vincent

[Kofi]

Ally Aldridge Book Genre, Books, Contemporary, Dystopia, Fantasy, Mermaid or Siren, Review

Book Review: The Seawomen by Chloe Timms

This post contains affiliate links. Please check out my affiliate disclosure page for more information.

I was lucky enough to get an ARC copy of this book via Net Galley. It’s release date is 14 June 2022.

About the book

Blurb of The Sea Women by Chloe Timms

My thoughts

I read an ARC from Net Galley and this is my honest review.

Wow! This book is dark and twisty. I’ve always wondered how people fall prey to a cult leader. How fears can control.

Esta lives on a patriarchal island where they fear the seawomen, and every challenge the islanders face is blamed on the sins of their women. Punished by god, they must repent to be saved. Esta sees through the lies and dangerously seeks answers to questions that if she was a good holy girl she’d ignore.

This book reminded me of the darkness of The Handmaids Tale. The way the book made me turn the page out of morbid curious that people could live this way. The history and characters are written so well, it was difficult to put down.

What an amazing debut!

If you like this, you will like:

Book Review: Cinderella is Dead
Book Review: Tenebrasco by Hannah Reed
Ally Aldridge Books, Dystopia, Fantasy, Review, Sci-Fi, Super Powers, Young Adult

Book Review: The Guidal – Discovering Puracordis by Roxy Eloise

This post contains affiliate links. Please check out my affiliate disclosure page for more information.

About the Author

I met Roxy Eloise on Instagram. She reads and reviews books on her Instagram channel. She has done a live reading of Ocean Heart.

She has an upcoming author event, where she will be giving a talk at Herts Book Festival on 7 May at Hertford Castle.

Discover The Guidal

My thoughts

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book is set in a futuristic boarding school where the students train to become enforcers. Aurora was taken there at a young age and told she was an orphan. She has questions about that night but is not allowed to ask.

She gets coupled with Pax, giving them certain privileges like going out on patrol and competing in the tournament. Things get heated until they discover something that drives Pax to attempt to get uncoupled. Meanwhile, the cocky juvie Aurora has been allocated seems to know her better than herself.

As Aurora uncovers secrets about herself, she will discover there’s more to her than just being an enforcer.

This futuristic sci-fi had great world-building and characters. This book left me wanting more. Bring on book two.

Buy The Guidal by Roxy Eloise from Amazon

If you like this, you may enjoy these: