Hey hey all, welcome back!!
So every month I buy myself a new book, as a sort of self-assembled book subscription. The general allowance is twenty-five dollars, so in June I got two, since Scarred and Assassin both cost $10.99.
My friend recommended Scarred and Assassin to me, since her friend Kiera wrote them. So ofc, I was happy to both support a new author and read what promised to be some great books.
Scarred when she was a child, Julianna thinks herself ugly, uncapable of loving and undeserving of love. She prides herself on being smart and logical, never allowing herself to succumb to emotion. So when her father loses his job, she does what she must and goes to work at Greenbriar Castle as a servant. What she thought would be a simple job turns out to be much more. Danger presses in on all sides, and she starts to question who her true allies are. With a rebelling kingdom taking other kingdoms captive, who can she really trust?
Julianna is picked among the servants to work alongside Prince Adrian, and together they must build an army to stop the Rowinthians. As they continue to work together, Julianna’s scarred heart begins to heal and soften toward the kind and handsome prince.
When the annual Autumn Ball goes terribly wrong, Crown Prince Adrian makes it his personal goal to defeat the rampaging kingdom once and for all.
Will they rescue their kingdom in time, or are they too late to save their happily ever after?
Belladonna Nightshade has been a trained assassin since she was a little girl. Crowned the queen of Rowinth, she lives in seclusion, hiding in her castle, her fears and anxiety keeping her from going practically anywhere.
When her people have finally had enough, the newly-crowned queen flees her kingdom in terror, seeking refuge at her grandmother’s house; the only family she has left. In her travels there, she meets the handsome and mysterious man Atlas, who seems to cause her to dwell on her past much more than she ever wished to, and appears to be hiding secrets of his own. They continue to travel together, and along the way, Belladonna sees the world in ways she never had before.
Upon arriving at her grandmother’s house, Belladonna discovers several shocking secrets about her past, sending her into a debate about what to do with them.
Will she cower back and hide, or will she stand up and finally fight her fear?
blurbs taken from amazon, since goodreads didn’t have them for some odd reason…
Now I realize that this is July.
And I also realize that these are from June and I’ve had them in my house for like…a month.
But I have a really good excuse explanation.
When I get bored, I go request a dozen books from the library. And then since they still have to be shipped from the other libraries to my library, I’m still kinda bored for like…a week or so. During which I request more books. So I may have had way too many books to read at the same time, and ofc library books get the priority since I have to send them back.
So here we are in July and I’ve only finished Scarred.
But it was splendid!! You could tell from the writing that Kiera isn’t as experienced of an author as, say, idk, pick your favorite author and insert their name here, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a great story to tell.
What I really loved about Scarred is Adrian and Julianna's relationship. Throughout the book, Adrian is clearly falling for Julianna, but he comes to love her as an individual first. He's not attracted to her purely because she's beautiful, but because her personality and spirit is beautiful. And once he discovers who Julianna is underneath her scars and protective wall, he forgets all about them and begins to see that she is beautiful. Adrian doesn't love her because she's beautiful, she's beautiful because he loves her.
This dynamic is faintly echoed in the reverse as well. Julianna has to look past the fact that Adrian is a prince to find the real Adrian. The one who hates being called “Your Majesty” and takes responsibility for things that were never his to bear.
So many books have their characters attracted to each other due to appearances. And ofc I get it, the love interest has to be cute or else how are readers going to fangirl over them, but there’s so much more to relationships than looks.
And that’s Scarred!!
A lil bonus for y’all, I’ve decided that Priceless (by for King & Country) is the soundtrack to this book. It really fits the themes contained therein. Actually, I discovered that Assassin has a soundtrack in the back (totally not snooping around the back of a book I haven’t read yet…) which made me very happy.
Mirror mirror, mirror on the wall
Tellin' those lies, pointing out your flaws
That isn’t who you are
That isn’t who you are
It might be hard to hear, but let me tell you, dear
If you could see what I can see, I know you would believe
That isn’t who you are
There’s more to who you are
So when it’s late, you’re wide awake
Too much to take
Don’t you dare forget that in the pain
You can be brave, hear me say
I see you dressed in white
Every wrong made right
I see a rose in bloom
At the sight of you (oh so priceless)
Irreplaceable, unmistakable, incomparable
Darling, it’s beautiful
I see it all in you (oh so priceless)
So that’s June’s book of the month (maybe you’ll get a part two when I read Assassin, we’ll see).
What book should I buy for July??
Always,
Ava
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9 Responses
Interesting!
Just wanted to let you know that I’ve tagged you for the Sunshine Blogger Award! No pressure; only if you feel like doing it 🙂
Yayyy!! Thank you!! I look forward to it 😊
Ooh these books look really good!! I’m gonna have to read these!!
Hehe I still haven’t gotten to the second book…😬 If you have better luck than I do dedicating your time to books in an orderly fashion, then I hope you enjoy them!!
Oh ok. Hehe idk we’ll see!! I’ll try my best 😉 How many of them are there?
So far there are only those two…I don’t know if she’s writing another or not *shrugs*
Ok, sounds good!!