skylarkblue1

Hi I'm Sky! I'm a queer disabled British (Welsh) reviewer who loves fantasy, horror, mystery and more! I mostly only post reviews & updates on here

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skylarkblue1 TBR'd a book

Masquerade

O.O. Sangoyomi

Set in a wonderfully reimagined 15th century West Africa, Masquerade is a dazzling, lyrical tale exploring the true cost of one woman’s fight for freedom and self-discovery, and the lengths she’ll go to secure her future. Òdòdó’s hometown of Timbuktu has been conquered by the the warrior king of Yorùbáland. Already shunned as social pariahs, living conditions for Òdòdó and the other women in her blacksmith guild grow even worse under Yorùbá rule. Then Òdòdó is abducted. She is whisked across the Sahara to the capital city of Ṣàngótẹ̀, where she is shocked to discover that her kidnapper is none other than the vagrant who had visited her guild just days prior. But now that he is swathed in riches rather than rags, Òdòdó realizes he is not a vagrant at all; he is the warrior king, and he has chosen her to be his wife. In a sudden change of fortune, Òdòdó soars to the very heights of society. But after a lifetime of subjugation, the power that saturates this world of battle and political savvy becomes too enticing to resist. As tensions with rival states grow, revealing elaborate schemes and enemies hidden in plain sight, Òdòdó must defy the cruel king she has been forced to wed by re-forging the shaky loyalties of the court in her favor, or risk losing everything—including her life. Loosely based on the myth of Persephone, O.O. Sangoyomi’s Masquerade takes you on a journey of epic power struggles and political intrigue that turn an entire region on its head.

skylarkblue1 TBR'd a book

Black Shield Maiden

Willow Smith

From WILLOW and co-writer Jess Hendel comes a powerful and groundbreaking historical epic about an African warrior in the world of the Vikings. Lore, legend, and history tell us of the Vikings: of warrior-kings on epic journeys of conquest and plunder. But the stories we know are not the only stories to tell. There is another story, one that has been lost to the mists of time: the saga of the dark queen. That saga begins with Yafeu, a defiant yet fiercely compassionate young warrior who is stolen from her home in the flourishing Ghanaian Empire and taken as a slave to a distant kingdom in the North. There she is thrust into a strange, cold world of savage shield maidens, tyrannical rulers, and mysterious gods. And there she also finds something unexpected: a kindred spirit. She comes to serve Freydis, a shy princess who couldn’t be more different than the confident and self-possessed Yafeu. But they both want the same thing: to forge their own fate. Yafeu inspires Freydis to dream of a future greater than the one that the king and queen have forced upon her. And with the princess at her side, Yafeu learns to navigate this new world and grows increasingly determined to become one of the legendary shield maidens. For Yafeu may have lost her home, but she still knows who she is, and she’s not afraid to be the flame that burns a city to the ground so a new world can rise from the ashes. She will alter the course of history—and become the revolutionary heroine of her own myth.

skylarkblue1 TBR'd a book

21h

The Murders of Molly Southbourne (Molly Southbourne, #1)

Tade Thompson

Every time she bleeds a murderer is born. Experience the horror of Tade Thompson's The Murders of Molly Southbourne. The rule is simple: don't bleed. For as long as Molly Southbourne can remember, she's been watching herself die. Whenever she bleeds, another molly is born, identical to her in every way and intent on her destruction. Molly knows every way to kill herself, but she also knows that as long as she survives she'll be hunted. No matter how well she follows the rules, eventually the mollys will find her. Can Molly find a way to stop the tide of blood, or will she meet her end at the hand of a girl who looks just like her?

skylarkblue1 TBR'd a book

21h

Walking Practice

Dolki Min

Squid Game meets The Left Hand of Darkness meets Under the Skin in this radical literary sensation from South Korea about an alien's hunt for food that transforms into an existential crisis about what it means to be human. After crashing their spacecraft in the middle of nowhere, a shapeshifting alien find themself stranded on an unfamiliar planet and disabled by Earth's gravity. To survive, they will need to practice walking. And what better way than to hunt for food? As they discover, humans are delicious. Intelligent, clever, and adaptable, the alien shift their gender, appearance, and conduct to suit a prey's sexual preference, then attack at the pivotal moment of their encounter. They use a variety of hunting tools, including a popular dating app, to target the juiciest prey and carry a backpack filled with torturous instruments and cleaning equipment. But the alien's existence begins to unravel one night when they fail to kill their latest meal. Thrust into an ill-fated chase across the city, the alien is confronted with the psychological and physical tolls their experience on Earth has taken. Questioning what they must do to sustain their own survival, they begin to understand why humans also fight to live. But their hunger is insatiable, and the alien once again targets a new prey, not knowing what awaits. . . . Dolki Min's haunting debut novel is part psychological thriller, part searing critique of the social structures that marginalize those who are different--the disabled, queer, and nonconformist. Walking Practice uncovers humanity in who we consider to be alien, and illuminates how alienation can shape the human experience. Walking Practice features 21 black-and-white line drawings throughout. Translated from the Korean by Victoria Caudle

skylarkblue1 TBR'd a book

22h

Hellmouth

Giles Kristian

Bohemia. 1370. A lost soul named Galien leads a band of hardened mercenaries on a mission for Mother Church. But in the dark forests of central Europe, a darker secret awaits. Bestselling author Giles Kristian (Lancelot, The Raven Viking Trilogy) takes us on an unnerving ride into fear and paranoia, bloodshed and redemption.

skylarkblue1 commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

23h

skylarkblue1

Need short horror rec with a fair amount of character deaths

A very specific rec request, I know 👀

Must need:

Max of 250 pages (can go a little over if it's a fast read!)
Horror, mostly cause I feel like this'll have the most deaths. Also chill with subgenres!
A good amount of character deaths. Not like, one every page or so, but a healthy chunk
Has to be good :P (feel free to stalk my ratings to see what I enjoy)
The more chapters, the better! Just keep it a short novel though.

Bonus:

In a quest on here!

I'm doing an Archipelago on the 22nd, and I want to submit a book alongside a game. Basically Archipelago is randomised games connected together, however it's also possible to add in a book! I'll get chapters unlocked (in order :P) through others playing their games, and in turn every chapter I complete it unlocks items and progress for other games. It'll last around 5-8h and I want to play a game as well as reading a book so that's why it needs to be short-ish. The character deaths is because I want to be evil - There's an option to enable Death Link, which allows me to hit a button to kill everyone else with death link enabled in their games :) I figured if I read a book with character deaths, every time a character dies I can hit that button 😄

Post from the Pagebound Club forum

23h

skylarkblue1

Need short horror rec with a fair amount of character deaths

A very specific rec request, I know 👀

Must need:

Max of 250 pages (can go a little over if it's a fast read!)
Horror, mostly cause I feel like this'll have the most deaths. Also chill with subgenres!
A good amount of character deaths. Not like, one every page or so, but a healthy chunk
Has to be good :P (feel free to stalk my ratings to see what I enjoy)
The more chapters, the better! Just keep it a short novel though.

Bonus:

In a quest on here!

skylarkblue1 TBR'd a book

The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door

H.G. Parry

From the author of The Magician's Daughter comes The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door, a mythic, magical tale full of secret scholarship, faerie curses, and the deadliest spells of all—the ones that friends cast on each other. All they needed to break the world was a door, and someone to open it. Camford, 1920. Gilded and glittering, England's secret magical academy is no place for Clover, a commoner with neither connections nor magical blood. She tells herself she has fought her way there only to find a cure for her brother Matthew, one of the few survivors of a faerie attack on the battlefields of WWI which left the doors to faerie country sealed, the study of its magic banned, and its victims cursed. But when Clover catches the eye of golden boy Alden Lennox-Fontaine and his friends, doors that were previously closed to her are flung wide open, and she soon finds herself enmeshed in the seductive world of the country's magical aristocrats. The summer she spends in Alden’s orbit leaves a fateful mark: months of joyous friendship and mutual study come crashing down when experiments go awry, and old secrets are unearthed. Years later, when the faerie seals break, Clover knows it’s because of what they did. And she knows that she must seek the help of people she once called friends—and now doesn’t quite know what to call—if there’s any hope of saving the world as they know it.

Post from the The Last Soldier of Nava forum

skylarkblue1

Thoughts from 19%

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skylarkblue1 wrote a review...

skylarkblue1

Aug 14, 2026

To Our Untamed Core

5.0

Enjoyment: 5.0Quality: 5.0Characters: 4.5Plot: 5.0

🇲🇽

🪓

🏳️‍⚧️

Thank you to Sonido and Harper Collins for a free ARC! All opinions are my own.

Representations: https://trello.com/c/pOIW0Wsu

 No matter what gets taken from us. no matter how much of our past or how many of our people get killed, we persist. We will always persist.

Characters were all so strong. There is pretty constant PoVs swapping between quite a few people, but it never felt terribly confusing, even on chapters with no names on them. They all had a distinct style in the way each character thought and even nameless chapters had more than enough in the first couple sentences to work out exactly whose PoV it was. The main cast was excellent, with a proper love triangle as well (with all 3 sides 😉). Temo was such a strong MC with loads of flaws but also such a strength about him. Flanked by Socoyote and Ollie the trio really grew into a really good cast with solid arcs, each of them bounced off of each other great. The side characters then also really shined, even the ones we barely get to see somehow. I also just want to pick them all up and give them a hug - except the king and queen and all the assholes >.>

I'm absolutely obsessed with the world building and history of it all. The religious indoctrination and fascism, the rebels and it all comes together so well to make such an alive feeling world. There is a fair amount of telling about stuff in the world, but a lot can be gotten from Temo's internal thoughts. I think there's only one bunch of questions left and every single one is around Ollie. His story is detailed a fair amount, but there's still quite a lot of questions I have about most of him 🤔

It is pretty similar to hunger games specifically but even though I kept thinking about that I never wanted to stop reading this and go read hunger games instead. This has much more world building and a lot more going on in the world instead of the "mostly just America" of the hunger games (I say this as someone who absolutely loves hunger games, especially its political side). If you enjoy hunger games (the books) though I'd say almost certainly you'll also love this book. Writing style certainly still reads YA like HG - the characters are teens, but it doesn't read like an adult writing kids. I would certainly say it's not for younger YA though, it's more brutal and graphic than the original HG trilogy at least by quite a lot.

skylarkblue1 made progress on...

The Last Soldier of Nava

Yejin Suh

18%

skylarkblue1 TBR'd a book

All the Scattered Stars

Via Luino

The glitter of Venice's lights hides a dark truth: when the floodwaters rise, no one is safe. Koru knows better than to trust anyone but her own. Hidden deep in the winding twists of Venice's narrow alleys, Koru and her found family must disguise themselves to survive. They are Rhunlokni, an ethnic minority gifted with the ability to channel the power of the Earth, their Goddess. They have long been vilified and prosecuted for their strange abilities—and Koru's gift is the strongest of her generation. So when the police arrive in St. Mark's Square to arrest Koru for a crime she didn't commit, she does the only thing she can—she runs. Though Koru manages to escape the police, a larger threat is drawing near. Koru must figure out what the Goddess is trying to tell her, protect those she loves, and uncover the truth of her past before it's too late—because Venice is sinking. Tonight.

skylarkblue1 commented on a post

karigan

Edited

NEW: Make your book suggestions here!

Hello everyone!

I am making a new suggestion post because the original is a bit buried and I want to ensure it's easy to find the criteria for what does and does not qualify.

If you have a suggestion for books to add to this quest, please comment them here. Make sure to double check that it has not already been requested on this post. If your suggestion is already here, please upvote the existing comment as I will use the upvotes to gauge interest!

What qualifies a book for this quest? The books in this quest are structured around a game or trial rather than just including games/trials somewhere in the book. The entire narrative is about preparing for the games, the games themselves, and the aftermath of the games.

Examples of books that would not fit despite including a game/trial plot point:

The Will of the Many by James Islington
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
The Poppy War by R F Kuang

While the games/trials in these books are important to the story, the books are not about the games/trials.

10/28/25 note: I am currently focusing on adding diverse voices, especially BIPOC authors, to balance the quest a bit more.

12/15/25 note: All suggestions from the old post and one-off posts have been added as individual comments here. If yours was missed please create a separate comment on this post.

4/1/26 note: I will be reviewing options between now and June to add a few more to this quest!

7/3/26 note: 6 new books have been added to the quest! I will be looking to add more books towards the end of the year (October-December). This post is getting quite long so I may make a new one with all the existing suggestions but for now, keep adding new suggestions to this post :)

skylarkblue1 TBR'd a book