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Review: The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai
This is a helluva novel to wake up to the new year with. The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai is an absolutely gripping fantasy novel set in an alternate Egypt with a feminist agenda front and centre. Nehal and Giorgina are in different social classes but both feel the oppressive weight of a society where a woman does not have the vote, where she is the possession of her father and can be sold into marriage. Add in the magic for this world where elements can be controlled by weavers. Water, earth, air and fire can all be controlled by adepts with talented weaver specialising further. Prior to the…
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Review: Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell
Ocean’s Echo is the second novel set in the same universe as Winter’s Orbit, but with new characters and new drama. The headline of this review is that I adored it. It is full of themes that I really got behind. Consent, mental control, neurological modifications and the ethics surrounding them. We are first introduced to Tennal. He is an extroverted disaster zone. He’s contrary, rebellious, charismatic, and the nephew of the Legislator, one of Orshan’s senior political figures. At the beginning of the novel, he is slumming it in a gambling den hiring himself out as a reader. Second generation of the orginal neuro-modded humans. He can read minds…