Author: jilljemmett

Jill lives in Toronto, Canada. She has studied English, Creative Writing, and Publishing. Jill is the creator and content producer of Jill’s Book Blog, where she has published a blog post every day for the last four years, including 5-7 book reviews a week. She can usually be found with her nose in a book.

Review: Evie and the Truth About Witches

Title: Evie and the Truth About Witches
Author: John Martz
Genre: Children’s, Picture Book, Fantasy
Publisher: Tundra Books
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: August 17, 2021
Rating: ★★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

Evie wants to be scared, but she’ll get more than she bargained for in this thrilling, witchy chapter book adventure! For fans of Sir Simon: Super Scarer and other spooky, kid-friendly books.

Evie wants to be scared, and the usual scary stories just aren’t doing it for her anymore. When she stumbles across a different sort of book, The Truth about Witches, she hopes she’s found something thrilling . . . but she’s forbidden by a kindly shopkeeper from reading the last page out loud! Naturally, her curiosity gets the better of her, and upon reading the last page out loud — a real summoning spell — Evie is spirited off to a strange land of magic, weird creatures, feasts and actual witches! They’re not as scary as they seem, until Evie asks to join their ranks . . . and only once she does is her quest for true scariness satisfied . . .

Review:

Evie wanted to read a scary book, so she went to a bookstore that specialized in scary books. She chose the book called The Truth About Witches. The bookseller warned her not to read the last page out loud. When Evie read the book before bed, she learned a lot about witches but wasn’t very scared. Though she knew she shouldn’t, she read the last page out loud. Evie had to face the life changing consequences of not following that rule.

This story would be perfect for Halloween. The illustrations were in black, white, and orange, giving it a Halloween theme. It also had a spooky theme with the witches that Evie learned about and eventually met.

The ending of this story really surprised me. It was abrupt and unexpected. As an adult, I loved it, but it could be a creepy ending for a child reader. It does teach an important lesson about listening and following rules, which Evie didn’t do.

Evie and the Truth About Witches is a spooky new children’s book!

Thank you Tundra Books for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What to read next:

Black and Bittern Was Night by Robert Heidbreder, John Martz

Do Frogs Drink Hot Chocolate?: How Animals Keep Warm by Etta Kaner, John Martz

Have you read Evie and the Truth About Witches? What did you think of it?

TBR Thursday – August 19

TBR Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly Faye Reads, where you post a title from your shelf or e-reader and find out what others think about it.

My pick this week is The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes.

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Goodreads Synopsis:

A Cinderella story with deadly stakes and thrilling twists.

Avery Grambs has a plan for a better future: survive high school, win a scholarship, and get out. But her fortunes change in an instant when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery virtually his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why–or even who Tobias Hawthorne is. To receive her inheritance, Avery must move into sprawling, secret passage-filled Hawthorne House, where every room bears the old man’s touch–and his love of puzzles, riddles, and codes. 

Unfortunately for Avery, Hawthorne House is also occupied by the family that Tobias Hawthorne just dispossessed. This includes the four Hawthorne grandsons: dangerous, magnetic, brilliant boys who grew up with every expectation that one day, they would inherit billions. Heir apparent Grayson Hawthorne is convinced that Avery must be a con-woman, and he’s determined to take her down. His brother, Jameson, views her as their grandfather’s last hurrah: a twisted riddle, a puzzle to be solved. Caught in a world of wealth and privilege, with danger around every turn, Avery will have to play the game herself just to survive.

Have you read this book? What did you think of it?

Review: This Poison Heart (This Poison Heart #1)

Title: This Poison Heart (This Poison Heart #1)
Author: Kalynn Bayron
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, LGBT, Fantasy
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Source: Purchased
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: June 29, 2021
Rating: ★★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

Darkness blooms in bestselling author Kalynn Bayron’s new contemporary fantasy about a girl with a unique and deadly power.

Briseis has a gift: she can grow plants from tiny seeds to rich blooms with a single touch.

When Briseis’s aunt dies and wills her a dilapidated estate in rural New York, Bri and her parents decide to leave Brooklyn behind for the summer. Hopefully there, surrounded by plants and flowers, Bri will finally learn to control her gift. But their new home is sinister in ways they could never have imagined–it comes with a specific set of instructions, an old-school apothecary, and a walled garden filled with the deadliest botanicals in the world that can only be entered by those who share Bri’s unique family lineage.

When strangers begin to arrive on their doorstep, asking for tinctures and elixirs, Bri learns she has a surprising talent for creating them. One of the visitors is Marie, a mysterious young woman who Bri befriends, only to find that Marie is keeping dark secrets about the history of the estate and its surrounding community. There is more to Bri’s sudden inheritance than she could have imagined, and she is determined to uncover it . . . until a nefarious group comes after her in search of a rare and dangerous immortality elixir. Up against a centuries-old curse and the deadliest plant on earth, Bri must harness her gift to protect herself and her family.

From the bestselling author of Cinderella Is Dead comes another inspiring and deeply compelling story about a young woman with the power to conquer the dark forces descending around her.

Review:

Briseis has the gift of growing plants, but she has to hide it most of the time. When her biological aunt, Circe, dies, Bri inherits a rundown estate in upstate New York. Bri and her moms go to the new home for the summer, where Bri will finally be able to use her gift freely. Strangers start showing up at the house, wanting to buy plants and elixirs from the apothecary that her aunt used to run. Bri is left with cryptic letters that lead her to a Poison Garden behind the house. As Bri explores her new home, she discovers secrets in her family tree. Bri must learn all of the secrets to save her current family.

This story was filled with Greek mythology, which I didn’t expect. I love Greek mythology, but I wasn’t familiar with some of the figures and stories in this book. I don’t want to give anything away, so I won’t say how this mythology was used, but it was very cleverly woven through the plot.

I was suspicious of most of the characters that Bri met at her new home. There were a lot of things that didn’t make sense at the beginning, but they were explained by the end. The story ended on a great cliffhanger, so I can’t wait to read the next book!

This Poison Heart is a great fantasy!

What to read next:

Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury

Have you read This Poison Heart? What did you think of it?

‘Waiting on’ Wednesday – August 18

This is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine. In this post we highlight a book that’s highly anticipated.

The book that I’m waiting on this Wednesday is The Bones of Ruin (The Bones of Ruin #1) by Sarah Raughley. The expected publication date is September 7, 2021.

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Goodreads Synopsis:

As an African tightrope dancer in Victorian London, Iris is used to being strange. She is certainly a strange sight for leering British audiences always eager for the spectacle of colonial curiosity. But Iris also has a secret that even “strange” doesn’t capture…​

She cannot die. 

Haunted by her unnatural power and with no memories of her past, Iris is obsessed with discovering who she is. But that mission gets more complicated when she meets the dark and alluring Adam Temple, a member of a mysterious order called the Enlightenment Committee. Adam seems to know much more about her than he lets on, and he shares with her a terrifying revelation: the world is ending, and the Committee will decide who lives…and who doesn’t. 

To help them choose a leader for the upcoming apocalypse, the Committee is holding the Tournament of Freaks, a macabre competition made up of vicious fighters with fantastical abilities. Adam wants Iris to be his champion, and in return he promises her the one thing she wants most: the truth about who she really is. 

If Iris wants to learn about her shadowy past, she has no choice but to fight. But the further she gets in the grisly tournament, the more she begins to remember—and the more she wonders if the truth is something best left forgotten.

What books are you waiting on this week?

Happy Pub Day – August 17

Happy Pub Day to all of these new books!

Evie and the Truth About Witches by John Martz

Cazadora by Romina Garber

The Merchant and the Rogue by Sarah M. Eden

Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko

Phantom Heart by Kelly Creagh

Never Say You Can’t Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times by Making Up Stories by Charlie Jane Anders

How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao

Dagger Hill by Devon Taylor

Living Beyond Borders: Growing Up Mexican in America by Margarita Longoria (editor)

Ashfall Legacy by Pittacus Lore

Me (Moth) by Amber McBride

The Endless Skies by Shannon Price

What books are you most excited for this week?

Top Ten Tuesday – Favourite Places to Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and it is now hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s theme is Favourite Places to Read. Here’s my list:

1. On the couch

2. In bed

3. In the backyard

4. On the beach

5. In the park

6. In waiting rooms

7. In the car (audiobooks or while parked and waiting for someone)

8. On a plane

9. In a mall

10. In a checkout line of a store 😂

What’s your list of places to read for Top Ten Tuesday?

Blog Tour Review: At Summer’s End

Title: At Summer’s End
Author: Courtney Ellis
Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance
Publisher: Berkley
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: August 10, 2021
Rating: ★★★★★

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Goodreads Synopsis:

When an ambitious female artist accepts an unexpected commission at a powerful earl’s country estate in 1920s England, she finds his war-torn family crumbling under the weight of long-kept secrets. From debut author Courtney Ellis comes a captivating novel about finding the courage to heal after the ravages of war.

Alberta Preston accepts the commission of a lifetime when she receives an invitation from the Earl of Wakeford to spend a summer painting at His Lordship’s country home, Castle Braemore. Bertie imagines her residence at the prodigious estate will finally enable her to embark on a professional career and prove her worth as an artist, regardless of her gender.

Upon her arrival, however, Bertie finds the opulent Braemore and its inhabitants diminished by the Great War. The earl has been living in isolation since returning from the trenches, locked away in his rooms and hiding battle scars behind a prosthetic mask. While his younger siblings eagerly welcome Bertie into their world, she soon sees chips in that world’s gilded facade. As she and the earl develop an unexpected bond, Bertie becomes deeply entangled in the pain and secrets she discovers hidden within Castle Braemore and the hearts of its residents.

Threaded with hope, love, and loss, At Summer’s End delivers a portrait of a noble family–and a world–changed forever by the war to end all wars.

Review:

Alberta Preston is a young woman who dreams of being a painter. When Bertie is invited to the Earl of Wakeford’s home of Castle Braemore to paint the estate, she defies her parents’ orders and leaves to make her mark in art. However, when she arrives, the job isn’t what she expected. The Earl, Julian, lives locked in his bedroom, having come back from the Great War injured. Bertie spends time with the Julian’s younger siblings, but she can’t help but try to crack the isolated earl. As they spend more time together, Bertie has to figure out the secrets hidden in the estate.

When I saw that this book was described as Downton Abbey meets Beauty and the Beast, I knew I had to read it. I don’t usually read books set in the 1920s, but I really enjoyed this one. The time setting alternated between the present with Bertie at Castle Braemore and scenes from the years leading up to the war that explain what Julian’s life was like before the war. This was a great way to show the events that led up to Bertie arriving.

There were many different types of trauma that affected Julian and his siblings. Julian had been physically injured in the war, which affected his mental health. His older sister was a widow with two young children. His younger brother didn’t conform to societal expectations, so he had to live his life secretly on the estate. His youngest sister no longer had a relationship with Julian, despite being close before he left for the war. All of these siblings had deep secrets that drew them away from high society and united them in a close bond.

At Summer’s End is a beautiful story about life after war.

Thank you Berkley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What to read next:

Miss Lattimore’s Letter by Suzanne Allain

The Heiress Gets A Duke by Harper St. George

Have you read At Summer’s End? What did you think of it?

It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? – August 16

This blog meme is hosted by Book Date. It is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are and about to be reading over the week.  It’s a great post to organize yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit and comment, and er… add to that ever growing TBR pile!

What I just finished:

This weekend I finished At Summer’s End by Courtney Ellis.

What I’m currently reading:

I’m currently reading This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron.

What I’m reading next:

Next I will be reading Never Say You Can’t Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times by Making Up Stories by Charlie Jane Anders.

What are you guys reading this week? Have you read any of these books?

Unboxing: July Bookish Box – ACOTAR themed by Inked Illusions Co

Last month, I ordered the first Bookish Box by Inked Illusions Co. It was filled with bookish goodies based on A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. This book definitely lived up to my expectations, and Inked Illusions Co is a local company!

These are the items in the box:

  • Bookish T-Shirt – “Valkyrie in Training”
  • A sticker bundle
  • A bookmark with Feyre’s tattoo
  • “Starfall” candle
  • “Velaris” mug
  • Bath salts
  • Ring
  • Keychain

This was such a fun box! The next one, which is From Blood and Ash themed, goes on sale for preorder on August 16.

What bookish boxes or merch do you like to order?

Jill’s Weekly Wrap-Up – August 15

Here are my reviews for the week with my ratings:

I did 7 weekly blogging memes:

How was your week? What did you guys read?