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The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation.

Enter the latest round of six: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, unwilling halves of an unfathomable whole, who exert uncanny control over every element of physicality. Reina Mori, a naturalist, who can intuit the language of life itself. Parisa Kamali, a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious, navigating worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova, an empath easily mistaken for a manipulative illusionist, who can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through illusions to a new structure of reality—an ability so rare that neither he nor his peers can fully grasp its implications.

When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will.

Most of them.

~~~~

This book was AMAZING! It is such a unique mix of fantasy and academia and it's such an interesting read. I loved the wide range of characters and seeing them interact and grow throughout the book. The mystery and suspense was also so good and I can't wait to read the next book!

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The Fine Print, Terms And Conditions, and Final Offer

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The Fine Print, Terms And Conditions, and Final Offer

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The Fine Print:

Rowan
I'm in the business of creating fairy tales.
Theme parks. Production companies. Five-star hotels.
Everything could be all mine if I renovated Dreamland.
My initial idea of hiring Zahra was good in theory, but then I kissed her.
Things spiraled out of control once I texted her using an alias.
By the time I realized where I went wrong, it was too late.
People like me don't get happy endings.
Not when we're destined to ruin them.

Zahra
After submitting a drunk proposal criticizing Dreamland's most expensive ride, I should have been fired.
Instead, Rowan Kane offered me a dream job.
The catch? I had to work for the most difficult boss I'd ever met.
Rowan was rude and completely off-limits, but my heart didn't care.
At least not until I discovered his secret.
It was time to teach the billionaire that money couldn't fix everything.
Especially not us.

Terms And Conditions

Declan
I’m destined to become the next CEO of my family’s media empire.
The only problem? My grandfather’s inheritance clause.
Fulfilling his dying wish of getting married and having an heir seemed impossible until my assistant volunteers for the job.
Our marriage was supposed to be the perfect solution to my biggest problem.
But the more we act in love for the public, the more unsure I feel about our contract.
Caring about Iris was never part of the deal.
Especially not when breaking her heart is inevitable.

Iris
My plan to marry Declan was simple in theory.
Move in together. Throw a wedding. Have a baby.
We set rules to prevent any kind of issues.
Ones that were never meant to be broken, no matter how much Declan tempts me.
But what happens when our fake relationship bleeds into our real one?
Falling in love was never an option.
At least not for me.

Final Offer

Callahan
I’m the Kane brother everyone gossips about behind closed doors.
Trust fund brat. Washed-up athlete. High-functioning alcoholic.
No one knows the real me but her.
Lana Castillo—my childhood best friend and the only woman I ever loved.
When I broke her heart six years ago, I promised to never return to Lake Wisteria.
I kept my word until my grandfather’s will changed everything.
To receive my inheritance, I was tasked with spending a summer at the family lake house before selling it.
The request was simple in theory until my entire plan blew up on the very first day.
Turns out Lana doesn’t just live at the house, but she claims to own it, too.

Alana
Falling in love with Callahan Kane was a mistake.
He told me so before destroying my heart and our friendship six summers ago.
When he promised never to come back, I foolishly believed him.
But then Cal showed up again, intending to sell his grandfather’s lake house.
The biggest flaw in his plan?
My name is on the deed.

~~~~~

I absolutely adored this series and Cal was by far my favourite.

Please note these books contain mature content

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Perpetual daydreamer Liz Buxbaum gave her heart to Michael a long time ago. But her cool, aloof forever crush never really saw her before he moved away. Now that he’s back in town, Liz will do whatever it takes to get on his radar - and maybe snag him as a prom date - even befriend Wes Bennet.

The annoyingly attractive next-door neighbor might seem like a prime candidate for romantic-comedy fantasies, but Wes has only been a pain in Liz’s butt since they were kids. Pranks involving frogs and decapitated lawn gnomes do not a potential boyfriend make. Yet, somehow, Wes and Michael are hitting it off, which means Wes is Liz’s in.

But as Liz and Wes scheme to get Liz noticed by Michael so she can have her magical prom moment, she’s shocked to discover that she likes being around Wes. And as they continue to grow closer, she must reexamine everything she thought she knew about love - and rethink her own ideas of what happily ever after should look like.

~~~~~

This book was absolutely amazing and I think everybody should read it (unless you don't like romance of course)

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An incendiary and utterly compelling thriller with a shocking twist that delves deep into the heart of institutionalized racism, from an exceptional new YA voice.

Welcome to Niveus Private Academy, where money paves the hallways, and the students are never less than perfect. Until now. Because anonymous texter, Aces, is bringing two students' dark secrets to light.

Talented musician Devon buries himself in rehearsals, but he can't escape the spotlight when his private photos go public. Head girl Chiamaka isn't afraid to get what she wants, but soon everyone will know the price she has paid for power.

Someone is out to get them both. Someone who holds all the aces. And they're planning much more than a high-school game...

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This book was such a good introduction to physiological thrillers if you are looking to dip your toes into the genre or get into the spooky mood. There are also lots of mystery elements that are fun to solve along with the characters. It is so captivating and you don't want to stop reading. The characters showed many different perspectives and were very relatable.

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I have a curse
I have a gift

I am a monster
I'm more than human

My touch is lethal
My touch is power

I am their weapon
I will fight back

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war—and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

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I'm honestly in love with this series, and I'm only halfway through it!! I love the way it's written, with some of the lines crossed out, it keeps my brain engaged throughout the book. There is so much to love about this book and I just want everybody to experience it!!!!

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Historical fiction, set in 1850s.
Four sisters traveling together after they are forced to flee their hometown.
Can be found on Amazon.

Warning- describes gore (doctor doing surgeries, etc.) and a near kidnapping.

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Present Day:
Eva has never felt like she belonged... not in her own family or with her friends in New York City, and certainly not at a fancy boarding school like Hardwick Preparatory Academy. So when she is invited to join the Fives, an elite secret society, she jumps at the opportunity to finally be a part of something.

But what if the Fives are about more than just having the best parties and receiving special privileges from the school? What if they are also responsible for keeping some of Hardwick’s biggest secrets buried?

1962:
There is only one reason why Connie would volunteer to be one of the six students to participate in testing Hardwick’s nuclear fallout shelter: Craig Allenby. While the thought of nuclear war sends her into a panic, she can’t pass up the opportunity to spend four days locked in with the school’s golden boy. However, Connie and the other students quickly discover that there is more to this “test” than they previously thought. As they are forced to follow an escalating series of commands, Connie realizes that one wrong move could have dangerous consequences.

Separated by sixty years , Eva's and Connie’s stories become inextricably intertwined as Eva unravels the mystery of how six students went into the fallout shelter all those years ago . . . but only five came out.

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I ended up reading this in one night because I could not put it down! I loved how it switched between the two perspectives and how their stories came together.

This is a great historical fiction mystery book and it was nominated for the 2022 White Pine Award.

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When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity.

Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.

~~~~~

I've been debating whether or not to put this book on here for a while but put it off solely based on how this book affected me.

I read this book back in August but I don't think there's been a day since I finished it that I haven't thought of it and every time I do, my heart starts to hurt.

I made the mistake of not reading the trigger warnings before reading this book and I wasn't ready for what I was reading.

So please, if you're going to read this book, please read the trigger warnings (they can be found with a simple Google search) to make sure you know what's coming.

If you want more information on this book please email me, I could go on forever about this book.

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Against the unforgiving landscape of a hospital, I fell in love with a mischievous, sun-eyed boy who became my only joy in that desolate place. That’s what made it all the more soul-crushing when he committed suicide in front of me.

Since then, I've sworn never to love anyone again. With three exceptions: My friends, Sony, Neo, and Coeur, a little gang of rebellious, dying kids. Sony leads the charge with the air of freedom and only one lung to breathe it. Neo, a bad-tempered and wheel-chaired writer, keeps track of our great deeds from stealing to terrorizing our nurse. Coeur is the beautiful boy, the muscle, the gentle giant with a failing heart.

Before death inevitably knocks down our doors, my thieves and I have one last heist planned. A great escape that will take us far from abusive parents, crippling loss, and the realities of our diseases. So what happens when someone else walks through the door? What happens when a girl joins our party and renders me speechless with her mischievous smile? What happens when she has suns in her eyes, and as terrified as I am to lose again, I start to fall?

~~~~~

Oh. My. Goodness.

I'm a sucker for a good sad book and this book had me laughing, frustrated but more important, crying.

The end of this book left me staring at the wall with tears streaming down my face. It had me absolutely BAFFLED

Please read trigger warnings before reading this book (they can be found online or in the foreword of the book)

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Debut voice Alison Ames delivers with a chilling, feminist thriller, perfect for fans of Wilder Girls and Sawkill Girls .

Moon Basin has been haunted for as long as anyone can remember. It started when an explosion in the mine killed sixteen people. The disaster made it impossible to live in town, with underground fires spewing ash into the sky. But life in New Basin is just as fraught. The ex-mining town relies on its haunted reputation to bring in tourists, but there’s more truth to the rumors than most are willing to admit, and the mine still has a hold on everyone who lives there.

Clem and Nina form a perfect loop―best friends forever, and perhaps something more. Their circle opens up for a strange girl named Lisey with a knack for training crows, and Piper, whose father is fascinated with the mine in a way that’s anything but ordinary. The people of New Basin start experiencing strange phenomena―sleepwalking, night terrors, voices that only they can hear. And no matter how many vans of ghost hunters roll through, nobody can get to the bottom of what’s really going on. Which is why the girls decide to enter the mine themselves.

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As someone who's not easily fazed by horror/thriller, I don't think I've read a book that gave me such a sense of dread the entire way through.

It's not so much gory as just... eerie. There's a sense of wrongness that I  felt through the entire novel, right up until the end. And that is a good thing for a horror/thriller!!

Also cried at the end.

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This is a great historical fiction novel that is set in Nazi-occupied France during World War 2. It tells the journey of two sisters who help to win the war in their own way. Highly recommended.

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I Know What You Did Last Summer meets The Haunting of Hill House in this atmospheric, eerie teen thriller following an estranged group of friends being haunted by their friend who died last summer.

Emily Joiner was once part of an inseparable group—she was a sister, a best friend, a lover, and a rival. Summers without Emily were unthinkable. Until the fire burned the lake house to ashes with her inside.

A year later, it’s in Emily’s honor that Chelsea and her four friends decide to return. The house awaits them, meticulously rebuilt. Only, Chelsea is haunted by ghostly visions. Loner Ryan stirs up old hurts and forces golden boy Chase to play peacemaker. Which has perfect hostess Kennedy on edge as eerie events culminate in a stunning accusation: Emily’s death wasn’t an accident. And all the clues needed to find the person responsible are right here.

As old betrayals rise to the surface, Chelsea and her friends have one night to unravel a mystery spanning three summers before a killer among them exacts their revenge.

~~~~

Woah.

I'm a sucker for a good supernatural gothic thriller with a sprinkle of mystery, and let me tell you this was a GOOD supernatural gothic thriller with a sprinkle of mystery.

The story is told in three segments:
First, Chelsea (one year after the accident)
Second, Kennedy (one year before the accident)
And finally, Emily (the year of the accident)

The novel was like a 352 page slow burn, I found myself trying to decipher the mystery of Emily's death using the information I was given but I could never quite figure it out. Something never added up. By the end I was in absolute shock and awe as the realisation of the truth came creeping in.

And that's all I'll say! Happy reading!

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An epic historical military fantasy, inspired by the bloody history of China’s twentieth century and filled with treachery and magic.

When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.

But surprises aren’t always good.

Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .

Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.

~~~~

Oh. My. God.

I quite literally have no words to describe this book, you just need to read it.

Rin is such a complex and intriguing main character. She is beautifully flawed, and over the course of the trilogy she only becomes more complex and layered.

On top of that, R.F. Kuang creates such an immersive world for her characters, and I felt myself connected to the story in a way that I rarely do. I legitimately cried while reading the final book in the trilogy. (It happened on the bus ride to Ottawa)

I can't say too much more for fear of spoiling, but I can say PLEASE read this masterpiece of literature and its sequels. You will not regret it.

****The Poppy War and its sequels deal with extremely heavy topics at times, so please read the trigger warnings before starting the book. You can find a list of trigger warnings here: https://booktriggerwarnings.com/The_Poppy_War_by_R.F._Kuang

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MOSAIC; A Write-On Publication is an anthology based on the one thing that is universal and seen in all corners of the earth; colour. This anthology is the second publication for Write-On, a high school writing club, and was written and put together by a group of dedicated and talented students. They used their unique experiences and different outlooks on life to bring you MOSAIC, a collection of poetry, prose and stories based on different variations of colour. This book provides you with a wide variety of writing styles, emotions and perspectives on the teenage experience. MOSAIC is the perfect combination of love, life and daydreams, and will be enjoyed by readers of all ages across the world.

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If you haven't already read MOSAIC (why haven't you?? Go read it.), then let me tell you why you should:

Diverse stories based on the idea of colour and what it represents for each individual author.

ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS WRITING.

There's gotta be at least one story/poem/bit o' prose you can somewhat relate to, I mean come on.

There's a playlist for each colour (self explanatory.

Perhaps the most important thing is that MOSAIC was written, edited, published, and created by our very own Write-On members last year.

There's more (obviously), but I would be here all day if I listed everything I love about MOSIAC.

GO READ IT!!