I review everything I read and post reviews on Goodreads and LibraryThing. That’s not enough. Good books are meant to be shared. Therefore, I’m spotlighting some of my favorite reads here on my site.
Spin the Dawn (The Blood of Stars #1) by Elizabeth Lim
out now; Indiebound, B&N, and Amazon
I received an early galley through NetGalley.
Spin the Dawn takes a myriad of genre tropes and spins them in an incredible way, resulting in a book that’s surprising, fast to read, and immense fun. The back cover copy pitches it as Mulan meets Project Runway, and that’s certainly an apt description of the book’s first third; after that, it becomes a fresh take on a fairy tale romantic adventure.
Maia is the Mulan prototype, but instead of dressing as a boy to become a soldier, she disguises herself to compete to be the emperor’s tailor. This competition is still a kind of war, though. Not only are her peers sabotaging her efforts, but the emperor’s fiance is uncooperative and sets up impossible challenges–and then there’s the fact that if Maia is outed as a girl, she’ll be killed for lying to the emperor. When she finds out the scissors gifted to her by her father are magical, she doesn’t want to use them; to my delight, she truly wanted to succeed by her own merits. I loved Maia for that.
Of course, there’s a romance, too, and it’s an incredibly well done one. I enjoyed how it developed and yikes, did the end deliver some major surprises.
I added this book to my list to consider for the Norton Award for next year. It’s that good. I hope its release is heralded by lots of positive attention, and I’ll certainly look for other books in the series.
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