#but if elena is an angel; she is one that is constant danger of becoming a fallen angel

[notmoreflippingelves]

Elena definitely has a lot of potential to go very, very dark, which kind of gets ignored by both canon and the fandom. (Not sure I'd go so far as serial killer--or at least not the sort that kills for pleasure/fun/attention. I see her more as ruthless tyrant in the Shuriki mold. Allowing her anger and other emotions to take hold of her completely in horrifying ways and becoming so convinced of her own self-righteousness that she is able to justify the most appalling behavior because she is Queen and powerful and the ultimate "Good"™)

But anyway, there are a few specific points re: Dark Elena (or the potential for it) that seldom get brought up by the fandom that I wanted to acknowledge.

The first is the fact that Elena and Shuriki are very clearly and intentionally set up as foils throughout the show. And specifically in ways that magnify not only their differences but also more importantly their similarities. And what are those similarities?

Both are beautiful, magically powerful women who are far older than they look.* Both overthrew their predecessor on the throne of Avalor (via the aid of an Esteban who was acting out of a powerful combination of fear, loneliness, and self-interest). Both are bearers of powerful magical scepters with (apparently) equal yet opposite powers. (Yet, the scepter of Night is able to create its own fire...and fire is something associated with light primarily...which suggests that the scepters and by extension, their bearers may not be so very different after all). Both are quick to anger with dangerous tempers.

But most importantly, both are (or have the potential to be) incredibly ruthless.

I particularly want to bring up what I see as the clearest, most frightening indication of "Dark Elena" in canon. Namely, we need to talk about Carla.

I will concede that Victor and Carla were traitors and should have faced consequences for their actions, a punishment that fit their crime.

And while we technically got that on paper, the actual situation that the Delgados ended up in would probably constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" under psychological terms at least.

It's important to consider that Carla turns herself in, specifically under the impression that Elena and co. will reverse the spell that turned Victor to stone. She was willing to accept whatever punishment that Elena demands, as long as Elena brings Victor back to life. Although Elena is non-committal, the episode does end with the strong implication that this is what Elena will do.

We do not see Carla Delgado again until at about a year has passed. ("The Magic Within" takes place during Carnaval which puts it sometime in February. "The Lightning Warrior" takes place after "Sweethearts Day" and before "Dia de las Madres" which puts us somewhere between February and May of the next year.)

And in all that time, Elena has not restored Victor. Moreover, she intentionally positions Carla in a dungeon cell that is within direct sight of Victor's statue. For an entire year!

Yes, Elena really did the children's show equivalent of locking Carla up in a room with what is essentially her father's gravestone and magically-preserved corpse. For a YEAR!

Like, that's pretty much the dictionary definition of psychological torture--right?

And what's more frightening, Elena doesn't even seem to realize or care just how mentally and emotionally damaging such a thing would've been to Carla. Either she's detached enough that she's unable to consider Carla's feelings, she's aware of what this would've done to Carla and didn't care, or she just straight up forgot about the position that she left Carla in.

And all of these options are each pretty uniquely terrifying in their own way.

* Elena may be physically 16-20, but she has nevertheless lived (however incompletely and miserably) decades longer. As a result of her unique circumstances, Elena is mentally somehow a lot older than her biological age and a lot younger than her chronological age. She has life experience even if she lacks maturity/emotional control that should've come with age if she had been allowed to "age" normally in a healthy environment. Yet another similarity she has with Esteban, who is also emotionally stunted due to the trauma of the Dark Times.™

Im making a whole post on this cuz Tumblr is being doodoo and wont let me reply to comments, but based on my recent EOA post, yes ive seen season 3, but I didnt think it was ENOUGH drama and suffering for Elena cuz I am deranged. And the other thing when I said Elena is on track to becoming a serial killer, YES IM NOT JOKING, SHE IS ON TRACK. I recently did hours worth of research reading articles on what happens to the human brain during isolation, and the damaged it does, and applied that to Elena, and all that summed up, shes 🤏 this close to going into psychosis and going on a killing spree no joke.

[ashleysitalianlitblog]

My Brilliant Friend (HBO Tie-in Edition): Book 1: Childhood and Adolescence

From the famous Italian author Elena Ferrante, the story is about a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Elena Ferrante’s four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its main characters, the fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflicted friendship. This first novel in the series follows Lila and Elena from their fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence. This book is now turning into an HBO MAX show and it’s a young adult classic in modern-day Italy

The Story of a New Name (HBO Tie-in Edition): Book 2: Youth

The follow-up to My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name continues the epic New York Times–bestselling literary quartet that has inspired an HBO series and returns us to the world of Lila and Elena, who grew up together in post-WWII Naples, Italy. 

In The Story of a New Name, Lila has recently married and made her entr��e into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighborhood that she so often finds stifling. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and a source of strength in the face of life’s challenges. In these Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante, “one of the great novelists of our time” (The New York Times), gives us a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging, a meditation on love and jealousy, freedom and commitment—at once a masterfully plotted page-turner and an intense, generous-hearted family saga. 

Adua

The book Adua is by lgiaba Scego has historical references and looks into the life of an immigrant. The story is about Adua, an immigrant from Somalia to Italy who has lived in Rome for nearly forty years. She came seeking freedom from a strict father and an oppressive regime, but her dreams of becoming a film star ended in shame. Now that the civil war in Somalia is over, her homeland beckons. Yet Adua has a husband who needs her, a young man, also an immigrant, who braved a dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean Sea. When her father, who worked as an interpreter for Mussolini's fascist regime,  dies, Adua inherits the family home. She must decide whether to make the journey back to reclaim her material inheritance, but also how to take charge of her own story and build a future. From the choices of being an adult to a wife, the book gives us a look of the hard choices life gives us in a heartbreaking story. 

100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed

An instant blockbuster in Italy that went on to become an international literary phenomenon, 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed is the fictionalized memoir of Melissa P., a Sicilian teenager whose quest for love rapidly devolves into a shocking journey of sexual discovery.

Melissa begins her diary a virgin, but a stormy affair at the age of fourteen leads her to regard sex as a means of self-discovery, and for the next two years she plunges into a succession of encounters with various partners, male and female, her age and much older, some met through schoolmates, others through newspaper ads and Internet chat rooms. In graphic detail, she describes her journey through a Dante-Esque underworld of eroticism, where she willingly participates in group sex and sadomasochism, as well as casual pickup

The Scent of Your Breath

Melissa P.’s fictionalized memoir, 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed, became an international literary phenomenon, selling over two million copies worldwide and provoking a warning from the pope. The Scent of Your Breath, the second installment in her series of confessions, is a tale of obsessive love and destructive passion.

Melissa is now a successful writer in Rome, living with her new lover, Thomas. With his soft body and feminine eyelashes, he is sensual, patient, and comforting—the antithesis of all the men who came before. But as soon as she meets Viola, a young woman from Thomas’s past, Melissa is consumed with jealousy. Written as a confessional letter to her mother, the story that follows is one of dark obsession, violent lust, and soul-destroying talent, teeming with the ghosts and dragonfly-women Melissa is convinced are trying to steal her man and bring about her ruin. The Scent of Your Breath blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy and delves deep into the disturbing yet strangely familiar mind of a teenage girl terrorized by love.

Three O'Clock in the Morning Is by Italian author Gianrico Carofiglio the contemporary heart-waring piece is about Antonio is eighteen years old and on the cusp of adulthood. His father, a brilliant mathematician, hasn’t played a large part in his life since divorcing Antonio’s mother but when Antonio is diagnosed with epilepsy, they travel to Marseille to visit a doctor who may hold the hope for an effective treatment. It is there, in a foreign city, under strained circumstances, that they will get to know each other and connect for the first time. A beautiful, gritty, and charming port city where French old-world charm meets modern bohemia, father and son stroll the streets sharing strained small talk. But as the hours pass and day give way tonight, the two find themselves caught in a series of caffeine-imbued adventures involving unexpected people (and unforeseen trysts) that connect father and son for the first time. As the two discuss poetry, family, sex, math, death, and dreams, their experience becomes a mesmerizing 48-hour microcosm of a lifetime relationship. Both learn much about illusions and regret, about talent and redemption, and, most of all, about love. This heartwarming story has captured the modern Italian audience. 

Lost Words

Winner of the Viareggio Prize, a vivid portrait of Italy on the brink of social upheaval in the 1970s.The author Nicola Gardini, writes about the Inside an apartment building on the outskirts of Milan, the working-class residents gossip, quarrel, and conspire against each other. Viewed through the eyes of Chino, an impressionable thirteen-year-old boy whose mother is the doorwoman of the building, the world contained within these walls is tiny, hypocritical, and mean-spirited: a constant struggle. Chino finds escape in reading. One day, a new resident, Amelia Lynd, moves in and quickly becomes an unlikely companion and a formative influence on Chino. Ms. Lynd—an elderly, erudite British woman—comes to nurture his taste in literature, introduces him to the life of the mind, and offers a counterpoint to the only version of reality that he’s known. On one level, Lost Words is an engrossing coming-of-age tale set in the seventies, when Italy was going through tumultuous social changes, and on another, it is a powerful meditation on language, literature, and culture.

Things That Happened Before the Earthquake

The book by Chiara Barzini describes a story about Mere weeks after the 1992 riots that laid waste to Los Angeles, Eugenia, a typical Italian teenager, is rudely yanked from her privileged Roman milieu by her hippie-ish filmmaker parents and transplanted to the strange suburban world of the San Fernando Valley. With only the Virgin Mary to call on for guidance as her parents struggle to make it big, Hollywood fashion, she must navigate her huge new public high school, complete with Crips and Bloods and Persian gang members, and a car-based environment of 99-cent stores and obscure fast-food franchises and all-night raves. She forges friendships with Henry, who runs his mother's movie memorabilia store, and the bewitching Deva, who introduces her to the alternate cultural universe that is Topanga Canyon. And then the 1994 earthquake rocks the foundations not only of Eugenia's home but of the future she'd been imagining for herself.

I'll Steal You Away

Italian literary superstar Niccolò Ammaniti’s novel, I’m Not Scared, prompted gushing praise, hit international bestseller lists, and was made into a smash indie film. In I’ll Steal You Away, Ammaniti takes his unparalleled empathy for children, his scythe-sharp observations, and his knack for building tension to a whole new level. In a tiny Italian village, a young boy named Pietro is growing up tormented by bullies and ignored by his parents. When an aging playboy, Graziano Biglia, returns to town, a change is in the air: Pietro decides to take on the bullies, his lonely teacher Flora finds romance with the town’s prodigal son, and the inept janitor at the school proclaims his love for his favorite prostitute. But the village isn’t ready for such change, and when Graziano seduces and forgets Flora, both she and Pietro’s tentative hopes seem crushed forever. With great tenderness, Ammaniti shines light on the heart-wrenching failures and quiet redemptions of ordinary people trying to live extraordinary lives.

Heaven and Earth: A Novel Every summer Teresa follows her father to his childhood home in Puglia, down in the heel of Italy, a land of relentless, shimmering heat, centuries-old olive groves and families who have lived there for generations. She spends long afternoons enveloped in a sunstruck stupor, reading her grandmother's paperbacks.

Everything changes the summer she meets the three boys who live on the farm next door: Nicola, Tommaso and Bern—the man Teresa will love for the rest of her life. Raised like brothers on a farm that feels to Teresa almost suspended in time, the three boys share a complex, intimate, and seemingly unassailable bond.But no bond is unbreakable and no summer truly endless, as Teresa soon discovers.Because there is resentment underneath the surface of that strange brotherhood, a twisted kind of love that protects a dark secret. And when Bern—the enigmatic, restless gravitational center of the group—commits a brutal act of revenge, not even a final pilgrimage to the edge of the world will be enough to bring back those perfect, golden hours in the shadow of the olive trees.

An unforgettable story of enduring love, the bonds between men, and the all-too-human search for meaning, Heaven and Earth is Paolo Giordano at his best: an author capable of unveiling the depths of the human soul, who has now given us the old-fashioned pleasure of a big, sprawling novel in which to lose ourselves

[zalrb]

Hi! If you were to write TVD realistically in regards to Damon and how they all handled him, what plotlines would you do? Do you think they would fight him? Do you think he would've been killed already? Do you think they would be friends with him? On the condition that the show is depicting their reactions realistically ofc. Like how would you write it? Thanks!!

OK well if we’re doing how would I write Damon period: https://zalrb.tumblr.com/post/620863474711625728/how-would-you-have-written-damons-character-as-an

If we’re doing how would I write Damon with everything he’s done, there is no way he lasts past season 2 and the only reason why I give him up to season 2 and not season 1 is because Caroline isn’t a vampire yet and so doesn’t have the strength to take him on and Bonnie wasn’t confident in her magic yet but Bonnie is a skilled witch, Caroline’s a vampire, Tyler becomes a werewolf and Mason is dead, there is literally no reason why they wouldn’t kill him and that’s why Damon doing everything he’s done and then becoming a part of the group does not in any capacity make sense.

In Buffy, in order for Spike to be an extremely reluctant ally to the Scoobies, he has to be implanted with a chip that causes him extreme pain whenever he tries to hurt a human and he has to be essentially helpless and starving for blood, then when they take him in, they keep him tied up with a rope and he exchanges information about the Initiative, which they need to take down, for shelter and blood and when he finds out that he can hurt demons without the chip causing him pain, he basically becomes extra muscle for the group in exchange for payment and Spike doesn’t do half the things to the Scoobies that Damon did to the group. Spike is functional, Damon causes most of the problems or escalates the problems the group already has so he doesn’t contribute anything, they don’t need him for anything.

Angel ends up leaving town and before that, he isn’t really in their lives, when they need help with taking down the mayor, he offers it and they reluctantly accept.

If we’re doing how I would write the group reacting to Damon in the later seasons:

How would you write the team up of the psychological break with Bonnie and Matt against the main group?

I always said that one day Matt would just snap, like some bullshit will happen to him again and he’ll just set Enzo on fire or something and Bonnie would walk in on him and he would just rant about how he’s sick of being the guy who gets run over and stabbed and buried alive and shot and be like dude, we were FINE until the Salvatores showed up and Damon killed Vicki and wanted to get into the tomb so Grams died and Bonnie being like Matt, c’mon, bad things would’ve happened anyway, Elena was the doppelganger Klaus would’ve  — and then he just scream and say this is what I’m talking about the constant defending, don’t you get sick of it Bonnie, think of everything that happened to you, like aren’t you just MAD? And then Bonnie leaves and gets taken advantage of again or lied to again or has to put her life in danger again with great emotional and/or physical cost but that’s a secondary thing to the core group (again) so she just goes to Matt like yeah you’re right.

So since it’s all-in for him, does Matt die or win? Knowing you, even if he dies, there’ll be far reaching consequences of this arc, right?                        

I think what I would do is Stefan and Damon argue about how to handle it with Stefan wanting to lock him up and Damon wanting to kill him. If he did die then I think the consequence of that would be the Salvatores leaving MF, like either Bonnie has been pulled back already and she’s like you guys drove him to this then murdered him, either they go or I do and Elena and Caroline choose Bonnie or after Matt dying they don’t trust the Salvatores to not kill Bonnie so Elena “banishes” them before it becomes a everyone tries to kill Damon and Stefan gets involved and puts his life in danger because of it

[heybitches63]

What could have been

I feel like Vampire Diaries started out so great but ended really badly (or well.. is about to end seeing as we only have one episode left). The beginning started out so great. Two brothers at constant odds with one another. One "good" brother and one "evil" brother. Always fighting, mostly over the girl. The first season almost had a Buffy-esque feeling to it. High school students. Vampires. Other supernatural creatures. Mysterious deaths. Witches. Even a local hang out ( with Buffy it was the Bronze. TVD it was the Grill). The big thing missing with Vampire Diaries?? Mythology. I mean, all of the great vampire shows (and movies) have it. It may not always be the same, but each had their own set of rules that they stuck by and followed. Vampire Diaries?? Not so much. They seemed to just make shit up as they went along, and the show really suffered. The main reason for this is because they wanted to shove the love triangle down our throats right from the beginning. They didn't seem to care much about the side characters at all for the majority of the series until they finally got Elena off the show, but by then it was too late. The characters had been almost one dimensional for so long there wasn't any coming back. We were told early on that when a witch happens to become a vampire they no longer keep their witch powers. They're gone. But then they bring the heretics in. And I think they sort of explained it? Though to be honest with you I'm not really sure how because by then I had to drink to get through the episodes. Vampires can't walk in daylight, typical for most vampire mythology. Damon and Stefan had special rings made eons ago by a witch. But then suddenly Bonnie knows how to make them and spells up a few for her friends. We're not even shown how she does the spell or what it even entails. She just shows up with one for Caroline. The doppelgangers are destined to find each other over and over again for eternity and fall in love over and over again! Except oops we messed up this time. This time she actually fell in love with the brother instead. So all of that was just rendered kind of useless. And we saw the back story on how that happened with Katherine, why it happened. But we didn't get anything on Stefan. His doppelganger wound up being alive and well in this century, too! But uhh...whoops we killed him. Nevermind. The Originals were an interesting concept. I was excited for them to bring Klaus on. He was this big bad vampire that no one could defeat. He and his siblings had been around for ages! But....for some reason Stefan and Damon had never heard of them in all of their 160+ undead years. Ohhh but wait! Stefan was actually BFFs with Klaus for a while and was banging his sister! It all just got mind erased!! Come on. I could believe one encounter. Maybe a few. But it seemed like they knew each other for quite some time. Stefan never found it odd that he didn't remember a large chunk of his memory like that?? Where was Lexi during all of this? She never mentioned it to him?? And are these vampires doomed to hell for all eternity? Regardless of them being "good" vampires or "evil" vampires? Because in the Buffyverse it was pretty cut and dry. They had no souls. So they were doomed to hell (with the exception of Angel and then later Spike since they had souls). On Vampire Diaries it's not quite so clear. Vicky certainly wasn't a horrible person or even really that evil of a vampire. But she's in hell? Lexi seemed pretty good too but we don't know anything about where she went. Katherine was sucked into some other dimension but is now back and ruling hell because she was the "baddest bitch of them all". Uhh.....right. Here's the most confusing one. Matt and Vicky's mom wasn't a vampire. I don't think she did anything aside from be drunk and leave her kids. But she wound up in hell? For that? I mean the rest of them killed people and wound up there. So why the hell was she there?? And helping Katherine?? The biggest thing I think that ruined the show was the sire bond. Basically it was the writers way of saying "Okay...so we want to have Elena and Damon hook up asap...she kind of JUST broke up with his brother though. So how do we make this work without making our lead character look like a complete asshole?"(newsflash...there is no way). Honestly the sire bond just made no sense and didn't work. They claimed that it was just ~so rare~ that it ever happens and yet it happened with Damon....twice? This guy must have the magic stick, huh?? And not one of the vampires they ran across in 160 years had it happen? Or knew about it? Hell it didn't even happen to Klaus and he's an original! It was a poor excuse to just try and get the two leads together. And once they did it just went downhill. Damon's whole appeal was the dangerous bad guy who you just kind of wanted to fuck on the side. The one you don't really want to tell your friends about. And certainly not the one who you would want to date. He became so whipped once he got with Elena it was almost sad to watch. I really had high hopes for the show at one time. It's so weird to see how it once was this awesome show and then to look at it now...yeesh. They had a lot of sloppy writers who just could not seem to keep the continuity of the show together. It seems as thought at least the actors know it's time to jump ship and move on. Poor Supernatural needs to follow suit because that's just depressing now.

[krystisyaandwine]

To celebrate the release of Elizabeth Brigg’s latest novel Future Threat, this AMAZING panel of authors played Author Truth or Dare and made all of us audience members laugh until we cried.

Erin Summerill was the hilariously ruthless moderator that made these ladies do things like spell the title of their book with their bottom, sing one of the blurbs from their books opera-style, reenact a kissing scene from their book with a mirror, and so MUCH more.

Between all the shenanigans we did get to learn about how Elizabeth Briggs uses a giant white board in her office to keep track of the giant timeline for her thrilling time-travel series. I can’t even imagine how complex that timeline has got to be!

We also found out what each of these amazing authors is working on at the moment.

Kathryn is working on book 3 in the Burning Glass series as well as a new super secret project. (YAY!)

Elizabeth is working on book 3 in the Future Shock series, which sounds like it will have even higher stakes than the first two books and will include some post-apocalyptic elements.

Tricia is working on the second book in the Daughter of the Pirate King duology, which we will hopefully find out the title of soon!

Erin is working on Ever the Brave, the second book in the Clash of Kingdoms series.

We naturally had a few YA and Wine members on the scene, and we all agreed that this was one of our favorite book events we’ve ever attended.

There were a couple other YA authors on the scene that have books releasing this year! Rosalyn Eves, author of Blood Rose Rebellion, was there and was nice enough to sign my ARC copy for me. Emily R. King, author of The Hundredth Queen, was also there and signed my copy, which was actually her first ever signature on an ARC copy of her book!

  I was also the SUPER lucky winner of one of the night’s giveaways, an ARC copy of Crystal Blade, the sequel to Kathryn Purdie’s Burning Glass.

About the Books

Want to know more about the books by these authors, check out the descriptions below and add them to your Goodreads list!

Future Shock by Elizabeth Briggs

What do you do when the future is too late, and the present is counting down to an inevitable moment?

Elena Martinez has street smarts, the ability for perfect recall, and a deadline: if she doesn’t find a job before she turns eighteen, she’ll be homeless. But then she gets an unexpected offer from Aether Corporation, the powerful Los Angeles tech giant. Along with four other recruits—Adam, Chris, Trent, and Zoe—Elena is being sent on a secret mission to bring back data from the future. All they have to do is get Aether the information they need, and the five of them will be set for life. It’s an offer Elena can’t refuse.

But something goes wrong when the time travelers arrive in the future. And they are forced to break the only rule they were given—not to look into their own fates. Now they have twenty-four hours to get back to the present and find a way to stop a seemingly inevitable future—and a murder—from happening. But changing the timeline has deadly consequences too. Who can Elena trust as she fights to save her life?

The first book in an unforgettable series about rewriting your destiny in the city of dreams.

Burning Glass by Kathryn Purdie

Sonya was born with the rare gift to feel what those around her feel—both physically and emotionally—a gift she’s kept hidden from the empire for seventeen long years. After a reckless mistake wipes out all the other girls with similar abilities, Sonya is hauled off to the palace and forced to serve the emperor as his sovereign Auraseer.

Tasked with sensing the intentions of would-be assassins, Sonya is under constant pressure to protect the emperor. But Sonya’s power is untamed and reckless, and she can’t always decipher when other people’s impulses end and her own begin. In a palace full of warring emotions and looming darkness, Sonya fears that the biggest danger to the empire may be herself.

As she struggles to wrangle her abilities, Sonya seeks refuge in her tenuous alliances with the charming-yet-volatile Emperor Valko and his idealistic younger brother, Anton, the crown prince. But when threats of revolution pit the two brothers against each other, Sonya must choose which brother to trust—and which to betray.

Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller

There will be plenty of time for me to beat him soundly once I’ve gotten what I came for.

Sent on a mission to retrieve an ancient hidden map—the key to a legendary treasure trove—seventeen-year-old pirate captain Alosa deliberately allows herself to be captured by her enemies, giving her the perfect opportunity to search their ship.

More than a match for the ruthless pirate crew, Alosa has only one thing standing between her and the map: her captor, the unexpectedly clever and unfairly attractive first mate, Riden. But not to worry, for Alosa has a few tricks up her sleeve, and no lone pirate can stop the Daughter of the Pirate King.

Ever the Hunted by Erin Summerill

Seventeen year-old Britta Flannery is at ease only in the woods with her dagger and bow. She spends her days tracking criminals alongside her father, the legendary bounty hunter for the King of Malam—that is, until her father is murdered. Now outcast and alone and having no rights to her father’s land or inheritance, she seeks refuge where she feels most safe: the Ever Woods. When Britta is caught poaching by the royal guard, instead of facing the noose she is offered a deal: her freedom in exchange for her father’s killer.

However, it’s not so simple.

The alleged killer is none other than Cohen McKay, her father’s former apprentice. The only friend she’s ever known. The boy she once loved who broke her heart. She must go on a dangerous quest in a world of warring kingdoms, mad kings, and dark magic to find the real killer. But Britta wields more power than she knows. And soon she will learn what has always made her different will make her a daunting and dangerous force.

The Hundredth Queen by Emily R. King

As an orphan ward of the Sisterhood, eighteen-year-old Kalinda is destined for nothing more than a life of seclusion and prayer. Plagued by fevers, she’s an unlikely candidate for even a servant’s position, let alone a courtesan or wife. Her sole dream is to continue living in peace in the Sisterhood’s mountain temple.

But a visit from the tyrant Rajah Tarek disrupts Kalinda’s life. Within hours, she is ripped from the comfort of her home, set on a desert trek, and ordered to fight for her place among the rajah’s ninety-nine wives and numerous courtesans. Her only solace comes in the company of her guard, the stoic but kind Captain Deven Naik.

Faced with the danger of a tournament to the death—and her growing affection for Deven—Kalinda’s only hope for escape lies in an arcane, forbidden power that’s buried within her.

In Emily R. King’s thrilling fantasy debut, an orphan girl blossoms into a warrior, summoning courage and confidence in her fearless quest to upend tradition, overthrow an empire, and reclaim her life as her own.

Blood Rose Rebellion by Rosalyn Eves

The thrilling first book in a YA fantasy trilogy for fans of Red Queen. In a world where social prestige derives from a trifecta of blood, money, and magic, one girl has the ability to break the spell that holds the social order in place.

Sixteen-year-old Anna Arden is barred from society by a defect of blood. Though her family is part of the Luminate, powerful users of magic, she is Barren, unable to perform the simplest spells. Anna would do anything to belong. But her fate takes another course when, after inadvertently breaking her sister’s debutante spell—an important chance for a highborn young woman to show her prowess with magic—Anna finds herself exiled to her family’s once powerful but now crumbling native Hungary.

Her life might well be over.

In Hungary, Anna discovers that nothing is quite as it seems. Not the people around her, from her aloof cousin Noémi to the fierce and handsome Romani Gábor. Not the society she’s known all her life, for discontent with the Luminate is sweeping the land. And not her lack of magic. Isolated from the only world she cares about, Anna still can’t seem to stop herself from breaking spells.

As rebellion spreads across the region, Anna’s unique ability becomes the catalyst everyone is seeking. In the company of nobles, revolutionaries, and Romanies, Anna must choose: deny her unique power and cling to the life she’s always wanted, or embrace her ability and change that world forever.

#Booknerdigans at the @lizwrites event! @KathrynPurdie @erinsummerill @TriciaLevensell To celebrate the release of Elizabeth Brigg's latest novel Future Threat, this AMAZING panel of authors played Author Truth or Dare and made all of us audience members laugh until we cried.