Book Reviews

Uptown Oracle Reads… The Girl and the Grove

Teenager Leila’s life is full of challenges. From bouncing around the foster care system to living with seasonal affective disorder, she’s never had an easy road. Leila keeps herself busy with her passion for environmental advocacy, monitoring the Urban Ecovists message board and joining a local environmental club with her best friend Sarika. And now…
Uptown Oracle Reads… To Kill a Kingdom

Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing they loathe…
Uptown Oracle Reads… Clockwork City

My name is Gideon Tau, but most people just call me London. Three years ago, someone killed my daughter. I sacrificed everything (the human race included) to learn his name – and then had to allow that knowledge to be erased from my mind in order to save the world I’d doomed. Fantastic. Now I have to…
Uptown Oracle Reads… Retribution Road

Sergeant Arthur Bowman, a sergeant in the East India Company, is sent on a secret mission during the Second Anglo-Burmese War. But the expedition is foiled – his men are captured and tortured. Throughout their ordeal, a single word becomes Bowman’s mantra, a word that will stiffen their powers of endurance in the face of…
Uptown Oracle Reads… Blood Will Out

Ari Sullivan is alive—for now. She wakes at the bottom of a cistern with only the shadowy recollection of a low-pitched voice and a gloved hand. No one can hear her screams. And the person who put her there is coming back. The killer is planning a gruesome masterpiece, a fairytale tableau of innocence and blood,…
Uptown Oracle Reads… Children of Blood and Bone

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zelie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were targeted and killed, leaving Zélie motherless and her people without hope. Now, Zélie has one chance…
Uptown Oracle Reads… The Call of the Rift

Seventeen-year-old Kateiko doesn’t want to be Rin anymore — not if it means sacrificing lives to protect the dead. Her only way out is to join another tribe, a one-way trek through the coastal rainforest. Killing a colonial soldier in the woods isn’t part of the plan. Neither is spending the winter with Tiernan, an…
Uptown Oracle Reads… Onyx & Ivory

They call her Traitor Kate. It’s a title Kate Brighton inherited from her father after he tried to assassinate the high king years ago. Now Kate lives as an outcast. When dark falls, the nightdrakes come out to hunt. Fortunately, she is a wilder, born with magic that allows her to influence the minds of…
Uptown Oracle Reads… Sword of Shannara

Living in peaceful Shady Vale, Shea Ohmsford knew little of the troubles that plagued the rest of the world. Then the giant, forbidding Allanon revaled that the supposedly dead Warlock Lord was plotting to destory the world. The sole weapon against this Power of Darkness was the Sword of Shannara, which could only be used…