Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

 

5/5 stars

Beautiful, perfection. This series now ranks in my favourite favourites.

We have the same cast of characters but in a more sort of way because they have grown so much, especially Sal! The one who has been through the most trauma and was the most timid but he's now taking charge, having big ideas and challenging the adults on his own terms, my heart 🥹

And little Lucy, it's so much harder for him to make the right choices but he does and he's lovely and I want to give him a hug! I LOVED Talia's comments about her beard and I love her confidence in herself and her appearance!

This book went more in depth about trauma and how it can influence a person and how the government is still totally shit and ignorant and unwilling to accept when they've done wrong.

The ending was perfection and I want an infinite number of these books.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

 

5/5 stars

So this was a re-read before reading the sequel. I first read it back in 2022 and it was a 5 then and it's still a 5 now.

Linus works for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth and he's been sent to investigate a rather unorthodox orphanage based on Marsyas Island. Unorthodox in the sense that it houses several children considered especially dangerous including Lucy, son of the antichrist, and Sal, a dog shifter who can pass his condition on with a bite, plus Chauncey so rare his species is completely unknown, there are also concerns about the master himself one Arthur Parnassus.

Overall I love this book, the characters are so well-written and the way the relationships develop and they grow into a family are so heart-warming. Found family at it's best 💕

Steff Out x

Little Darlings by Melanie Golding

 

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

2/5 stars

This book felt confused as to what it wanted to be. It read a lot like a crime thriller, especially in the sections from the cop's point of view (also either refer to her as Jo/Joanna or pick a surname that isn't a common first name, I would get confused whenever her first name was mentioned because Harper so often is a first name) but then there's all this stuff about changelings at the beginning of most chapters.

As for Lauren I really wanted her to officially ditch her useless, unsupportive husband. He was definitely having an affair even if he didn't admit it.

The changeling stuff would have been better if they'd gone into more detail about it and done more research, it was just there and barely. It all felt very vague and incomplete and even the ending wasn't really an ending, it just stopped and it didn't feel like much had changed.

Steff Out x