Godsgrave Archives - Novel Notions

Celeste’s Top 21 Books of the Year (2021)

December 30, 2021 Celeste Comments 2 comments

At last, 2021 is drawing to a close. Or, as I like to call it, 2020 part 2. While the year wasn’t the best, I did have a pretty great reading year. According to Goodreads, I read 110 books this year. According to my own spreadsheet, I read 192. That 82 book difference is comprised largely of various long, spicy romance series that I didn’t want to have to review because I was consuming them so quickly, so I made the decision to not include them on Goodreads. But I wanted to acknowledge them here. This was the year of the romance novel for me. Romance has never been my genre of choice, but I found so much solace in it this year. For the first time, I truly understand why there are so many dedicated romance readers out there, and now I happily consider myself one of them. Four novels on this list are romances, in fact.

While I read a metric ton of romance, I think I read fairly widely this year. This list includes fantasy, mystery, thriller, horror, sci-fi, and literary fiction. One of the biggest common denominators on this list is actually Greek mythology. I’ve always loved mythology, and this year I read some amazing books retelling some of those myths in fun and refreshing ways. This is something I hope to find even more of next year.

As always, I’m following Petrik’s example here.
– One entry per author. (But not always only one book. I’m cheating this year. You’ll see what I mean.)
– Rereads aren’t included.
– The books on this list were new to me, not necessarily new. They might not have been published this year, but this was my first time reading them.
– All of these books were either 4.5 or 5 star reads for me.

Links to my Goodreads reviews of each book will be included below. And now, without further ado, here are my favorite books of 2021!

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Book Review: Godsgrave (The Nevernight Chronicle, #2) by Jay Kristoff

March 3, 2021 Eon Comments 0 Comment

Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: The Nevernight Chronicle (Book #2 of 3)

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 448 pages (US hardback edition)

Published: 7^th September 2017 by Harper Voyager (UK) & 5^th September 2017 by St. Martin’s Press (US)

Rejoice, O gentlefriends! Devious, gripping and fast paced, Godsgrave is a worthy sequel that delivers the expected and the unexpected in equal amounts.

Godsgrave reunites us with that daughter of shadows, Mia, as she continues her quest for vengeance. Taking place shortly after the events of Nevernight, the story has two alternating timelines, four months apart. The present timeline is where we first meet up with Mia again, wondering what in the blazes is going on as she finds herself being sold as a slave to a Collegium of gladiatii or gladiators. While mysterious, it of course holds the promise of seeing our girl as a gladiator, fighting in an arena. No complaints here. As for the past timeline, it will need to stay a mystery for now, as it contains spoilers for the first book. I will say however that it is the continuation of Nevernight’s denouement until some possibly devastating information crosses Mia’s path. Consequently, she is left to question much of what she knows and to formulate a new plan of attack, sending the plot in an entirely different direction. We get to follow both these timelines until their convergence, as the reasons for Mia’s current path is laid bare.

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Emma’s Best Books of 2019

December 28, 2019 Emma Comments 2 comments

The featured image above was specifically designed by Felix Ortiz for Novel Notions’ Top 20 Lists.

Ok, I’ll admit it, I’m cheating… my Best Books of 2019 post is a little different from the rest of the Novel Notions team.

It’s felt like a bit of a strange reading year for me, with a lot of study, non-fiction, and comfort rereads. My number is sitting at 164 so far, with a whole load getting that very respectable 4 star rating. However, there have only been a small amount that have truly floored me, that have deserved the 4.5 or the big, shiny 5 star rating. These are the kind of books that stay in your memory forever, that you recommend EVERYWHERE and as often as possible. They’re the ones where it’s almost impossible to stop your eyes from flicking forward to see what’s coming next because you’re so excited to get there. When I made that feeling the criteria for my list, it made things immediately clear. I don’t have 20, I have 10. They were all published this year and I loved them all. I hope you consider giving them a go too…

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Book Review: Godsgrave (The Nevernight Chronicle, #2) by Jay Kristoff

August 31, 2019 Petrik Leo Comments 4 comments

Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: The Nevernight Chronicle (Book #2 of 3)

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 448 pages (US hardback edition)

Published: 7^th September 2017 by Harper Voyager (UK) & 5^th September 2017 by St. Martin’s Press (US)

I applaud The Droogs who finished Godsgrave before or around its publication date, thank you for your sacrifice; may the Lady of Blessed Murder bless your patience.

“That’s the power of words; twenty six little letter can paint a whole universe”

Godsgrave is the sequel to Nevernight. The story still follows our beloved ruthless assassin, Mia Corvere, as she continues her journey for vengeance. Godsgrave didn’t start off easy for me to get into. Nevernight was a revenge story with a battle-school setting; Godsgrave is the continuation to that revenge story without any of the battle-school trope. Almost the entirety of the book revolved around a new mission: Mia’s struggle to win the gladiatorial collegium for a chance to complete her unfinished revenge. Although familiar faces and characters—such as Mister Kindly and Eclipse—still played a huge role, many previous characters only appeared briefly; there were a lot of new characters introduced in this installment and for the majority of the time, Mia spent her time with them rather than the characters from the first book. Also, I’ve mentioned in my Nevernight review that the footnotes didn’t bother me; they were entertaining and they provided insights into the world-building of Itreya. This is still true in Godsgrave, but admittedly, the footnotes in this installment were often too long to my liking. I’m talking about one or two pages long footnotes. The longevity of the footnotes ended up being distracting to my reading immersion, and this was especially true in the first half of the book. Because of all these, Godsgrave ended up taking me longer—around 40% of the book—to fully engross myself into. Were all this necessary though? Yes. Rest assured that the build-up and groundwork were put to good use; resulting in an incredibly engaging second half of the book.

Picture: Pale Daughter by Nan Fe

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