Q by Christina Dalcher

This book held me right to the end and didn't end as expected. In fact I filled up at the last few paragraphs.

Children have to achieve certain standards or they get demoted to a lower school. The lowest schools are those where the children have to leave the family home and go to a state school somewhere else in the country.

Some unexpected transfers occur in the street where El lives, two girls in the neighbourhood get dropped from Silver to Yellow, unheard of before. And there was no sign of the girls failing before that.

Then El's daughter Freddie is transferred. El cannot stand the idea of Freddie in a yellow state school on her own. She asks her husband Malcolm to intervene, as he is in the top level of the management team for the Fitter Family Programme, but he refuses.

So El deliberately flunks her own teacher assessment to be transferred too.

What she expects and what she gets are so far apart as to be unbelievable.

"Freddie’s in a boarding school, and I’m going to take her out of it. It will be two short days before I realize how absolutely wrong I am."

I received an e-ARC of this novel through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. NetGalley does not allow for paid reviews.   

3/5 Stars (What this means...five-stars-applied-carefully)

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PERFECTION IS EVERYTHING

Elena Fairchild is a teacher at one of the state’s new elite schools. Her daughters are exactly like her: beautiful, ambitious, and perfect. A good thing, since the recent mandate that’s swept the country is all about perfection.

Now everyone must undergo routine tests for their quotient, Q, and any children who don’t measure up are placed into new government schools. Instead, teachers can focus on the gifted.

Elena tells herself it’s not about eugenics, not really, but when one of her daughters scores lower than expected and is taken away, she intentionally fails her own test to go with her.

But what Elena discovers is far more terrifying than she ever imagined…

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Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth

Sloane Andrews doesn't like being in the public gaze, and some publicists like to rat her out and bitch about her, so it is no wonder really.

Ten years ago, Sloane was a Chosen One, and now she really could do with a private life where she could actually live quietly. Unfortunately she lives a life of being on public display, attending public events and generally being a public possession.

Then Sloane and three of the other Chosen Ones find themselves pulled through to another reality, where they must fight their battles again, to save all worlds, not just their own.

Sloane is a flawed and snarky character, she can't help being off with people. I like that about her, she is content to be herself and doesn't like having to fake being nice.

I was able to guess some of the plot, but wasn't 100% right in any of my guessing. The ending was unexpected and different.

"Sloane was up and panting. Quiet, she told herself. Her toes curled under; the ground was cold here, in the Dark One’s house, and he had taken her boots."

I received an e-ARC of this novel through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. NetGalley does not allow for paid reviews. 

I also discovered spanakopita, which I intend to try out sometime soonest. 

4/5 Stars (What this means...five-stars-applied-carefully)

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The mesmerising adult debut from Veronica Roth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Divergent.

They were the Chosen Ones. Saving the world made them heroes. Saving it again might destroy them.

When Sloane Andrews and her friends defeated the Dark One, and saved the world, it nearly cost them everything. Ten years later, they are still struggling to put the battle behind them and reclaim their lives. After all, the rest of the world has moved on . . . so why can't they?

Of the five, Sloane has had the hardest time adjusting. Everyone else blames the PTSD ­­- and her huge attitude problem - but really, she's hiding secrets from them . . . secrets that keep her tied to the past and alienate her from the only four people in the world who understand her.

On the tenth anniversary of the Dark One's defeat, something unthinkable happens: one of the Chosen Ones dies. When the others gather for the funeral, they discover the Dark One's ultimate goal was much bigger than they, the government, or even prophecy could have foretold - bigger than the world itself.

Last time, it took everything she had. This time, it might not be enough.

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Dark Secrets (Lancers Book 4) by P. R. Adams

The Lancers return, a slightly different team, but I know them all (though that is not essential for reading the book - it just gave me a buzz that I did). It makes good reading seeing how they work out how, or whether, they can work together. It's made more difficult by the job the Benji’s got them on.

However, Benji isn't happy with Go's changes to the team and Go doesn't like it when people keep secrets (and most of them have), so there are 'problems' in the team. 

The 'job' is high earning and as usual, for Lancers, that requires a lot of commitment (a bit like marriage! - to the death). 

It seems like a historical vendetta is playing out and the Lancers are front and centre, saving themselves and many more along the way.

Without wanting to spoil your enjoyment of this most excellent novel, I would like to say that I found it exciting to read and intriguing at how previous stories linked into it. Somehow P R Adams manages to create real worlds and environments that give the reader an immersive experience.

I'll be going back over P R Adams book list to read or re-read some of his other older books to get back story and keep up my character and world knowledge, I reckon.

"Firefights were always the same for Jason. Everything took on a frightening clarity, as if the universe had cranked itself up to eleven."

I received a free copy of this novel from the author in exchange for a fair and honest review.

5/5 Stars (What this means...five-stars-applied-carefully)

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Secrets and lies can get you killed.

Benji Chan is a Gridhound, an elite hacker. In fact, she’s the best hacker ever known. And she’s put together an expert team of Lancers—bounty hunters, detectives, and mercenaries. Now all she has to do is keep them together.

Their first job seems simple enough: Find the spy who’s trying to steal valuable industrial secrets on a remote colony world. But nothing’s ever as simple as it appears. Lies and betrayal quickly destroy the team’s trust in each other and in their employer, and the job itself is nothing like they expected.

Will this be the opportunity of a lifetime, or will it be the last thing they ever do?

The Lancers series is full of mystery, suspense, and intrigue. Grab your copy now, and enjoy the thrilling twists and turns that come with Dark Secrets.

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Bone Silence by Alastair Reynolds

Adrana and Arafura (Fura) Ness are back in this (allegedly) last book in the series. Having upset the whole Congregation of worlds with the changes in quoins and their values, they are now being hunted for a variety of crimes. They set out to acquire a means of communicating and listening in on ship to ship messages. Each sister also has their own 'shopping list' of things they want to acquire while docked.

Fura commandeers another ship for Adrana and they each set their ships towards their next target, where they will be able to satisfy their curiosity regarding certain matters relating to the cycle of the rise and fall of civilisations and other tasks they have taken upon themselves.

Meanwhile the hunters are circling and drawing near, with dirty tricks, to capture the Ness sisters. The intention is to hang every crime they can on the heads of the sisters, while setting everyone against them to ensure capture and conviction at the very least (death if necessary).

Each sister has to deal with difficulties thrown in their path, hoping that they will eventually be safely reunited and better placed than they are at the start.

I enjoyed this book, I like the world's that the sister's and their crew visit and the people they meet. They all have their different ways of speaking, for example the space farers talk like pirates, alien's have their own different ways of communicating and the robots speak depending on their level of repair. The author states that they have finished this world now, which I am disappointed about. However, the books in this series are excellent and I am glad that I have read them.

If you enjoy space or adventure stories you will most likely enjoy this book. I recommend it to you, but make sure that you read the other two first (Revenger and Shadow Captain).

"The man was not a man. The upper two thirds of his face, from the point where his nose might have begun, was a jumble of insect parts stitched together like the pieces of a rag doll."

I received an e-ARC of this novel through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. NetGalley does not allow for paid reviews.

5/5 Stars (What this means...five-stars-applied-carefully)

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Return to the Revenger universe, for another thrilling tale set among the stars . . .

Quoins are accepted currency throughout the thousands of worlds of the Congregation. Ancient, and of unknown origin and purpose, people have traded with them, fought for them, and stolen quoin hordes from booby-trapped caches at risk to life and limb throughout the Thirteen Occupations. Only now it's becoming clear they have another purpose . . . as do the bankers who've been collecting them.

The Occupations themselves are another puzzle. The rise and fall of civilisation may have been unevenly spaced across history, but there is also a pattern. Could something be sparking the Occupations - or ending them? And if so, what could it be, lurking far beyond the outermost worlds of the Congregation?

The Ness sisters are being hunted for crimes they didn't commit by a fleet whose crimes are worse than their own. If they're to survive, and stay one step ahead of their pursuers - if they're to answer the questions which have plagued them - it's going to require every dirty, piratical trick in the book .

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