I Read, Therefore I Blog

The Blurb On The Back:

A mysterious key unlocks a perilous adventure …

Face-changer Ista Flit has saved the magical town of Shelwich but her Pa is still missing.

His trail leads Ista to the Marsh Court, where a beautiful queen tricks runway humans into joining her endless revels.

The only way to rescue Pa is to venture inside, but as the Tide rises, so too does the Marsh Queen’s power. Can Ista, Nat and Ruby use their own magical Tide-blessings to outwit her, or will they all be lost forever … ?

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The Verdict:

The second in Clare Harlow’s fantasy trilogy for readers aged 9+ (featuring Kristina Kister’s evocative illustrations) is a clever and gripping adventure about friendship and family set against the sinister Marsh Queen’s court. Ista remains interesting and resourceful and although I wish that there had been more between her, Nat and Ruby, the friendship that develops with Tamlin is believable. I am very much looking forward to the final book.

TIDE MAGIC: ISTA FLIT AND THE IMPOSSIBLE KEY was released in the United Kingdom on 1 May 2025. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

While hiking, Rhi discovers four young women living wild and guarded by wolves. The girls tell her that they are lost princesses raised by a man called Mother.

Shocked, Rhi takes them to hospital, all the while haunted by memories of her family trauma. Surely, the girls have been abducted, misled or abused? Yet she can see a bond between them that blurs fantasy and reality.

As media hysteria surrounding the young women grows, Rhi comes to a decision that will change all of their lives forever.

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The Verdict:

Madeline Claire Franklin’s debut YA novel maintains a satisfying ambiguity between its contemporary and fantasy elements in a way that’s mature without feeling like a cop out. Character-driven, it deals sensitively with the difficult topic of abuse (trigger warning for cannibalism) and combines it with themes of found family and survivorship. This is one of the strongest YA debuts I’ve read and I look forward to reading Franklin’s next book.

THE WILDERNESS OF GIRLS was released in the United Kingdom on 2 January 2025. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Things get SPOOKY at Dragon Towers!

Dragon Towers is holding its super scary SPOOKYTIME festival and Theo, his friends and the dragons can’t wait for PERILOUS pumpkin-picking, FEARSOME midnight feasts and FRIGHTFUL fancy dress - but then they hear strange roars coming from the forbidden tower … is it an actual ghost dragon?

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The Verdict:

The second book in this comic fantasy series by Pip Bird (a pseudonym for a collection of writers) for readers aged 6+ is an amusing affair with a lot of bum and fat jokes. David O’Connell’s illustrations add to the humour (I particularly liked how he gets across Wanda’s character) and I enjoyed the antics of the zombicorns. That said there are a lot of characters and I got some mixed up so a character list at the start would be helpful.

DRAGON TOWERS: THE GHOSTLY SURPRISE was released in the United Kingdom on 26 September 2024. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

At the age of 41, Rich Waters received a diagnosis that sent shockwaves through his world: early-onset Parkinson’s disease. But fate had more in store for him; shortly after this revelation, he learned that his daughter was also grappling with a degenerative condition.

Cold water swimming on the Isle of Skye, became his lifeline - a radical wellspring of fulfilment and resilience. Plunging into the frigid depths, Rich found a strong connection with the natural world. The sensation of icy water on his kin mirrored the challenges he faced in his life, and each swim taught a crucial lesson of personal survival.

Guided by Matt Rhodes, known as ‘the viking of Skye’, Rich discovered that the biting cold, the relentless waves and the untamed currents were more than just physical challenges: they were a metaphor for the unpredictability of life itself. In those waters, he learnt to surrender control, to accept the ebb and flow of existence, and to find beauty in the chaos.

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The Verdict:

Richard Waters is an award-winning travel and sports writer. This very personal book is part memoir, part self-help guidance that looks at how cold water swimming and a stoic attitude helped him to come to terms with two life-changing events. Unfortunately it lacks the self-reflectiveness and raw honesty to succeed as a memoir and lacks the general life advice to work as self-help, which is a shame as the descriptions of nature are excellent.

SWIMMING WITH THE VIKING OF SKYE was released in the United Kingdom on 27 February 2025. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Ibraheem LOVES Eid.

What’s not to love?

There’s games and snacks and … PRESENTS!

Eid is ALL about the presents - isn’t it?

Join Ibraheem as he hunts of this gifts and discovers all the things that make Eid wonderful.

A heartwarming celebration of Eid, curious children and family love.

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The Verdict:

Farhana Islam and Nabila Adani’s picture book is a colourful, joyous exploration of the social, family and spiritual meaning of Eid that aims to show young readers that the celebration is not just about receiving gifts. I liked the fact that it’s aimed at Muslim readers but it does miss a trick by not giving a bit more context or explanations for non-Muslims who may want to know more about it.

IBRAHEEM’S PERFECT EID was released in the United Kingdom on 27 February 2025. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Since the end of the Second World War, we have moved from an international system in which war was accepted as the ultimate arbiter of disputes between nations, to one in which it was not. This remarkable book, which combined political, legal and intellectual history, traces the origins and course of one of the great shifts in the modern world.

The pivot was the Paris Peace Pact of 1928, when virtually every nation renounced war as a means of international policy. By 1939, however, that Pact looked like a naive experiment. Hathaway and Shapiro show that it was in fact the critical moment of a new attitude to war, and how it shaped the thinking of those who framed a new world order after 1945.

Though this is a book about the power of ideas and their impact upon history, it is peopled throughout by individuals who brought about these momentous changes. The Internationalists is a significant contribution to understanding international affairs, and how great historical changes come about.

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The Verdict:

Oona Hathaway is Professor of International Law and Political Science at Yale and Scott Shapiro is Professor of Law and Philosophy at Yale. This is a thorough and engaging look at the legal framework underpinning war as a means of dispute resolution and how the Grotius view of “might is right” was overturned with the 1928 Paris Peace Pact, which changed attitudes to the legitimacy of war and formed the basis of the modern international order.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

In Breaking Bread, expert baker and food writer David Wright explores bread’s deep connection to culture, health and the environment, whilst addressing challenges like industrialisation, food trends and bakery closures. He examines bread’s pivotal role in civilisations, food security and sustainability, questioning its future in a changing role.

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The Verdict:

David Wright is a baker, writer and presenter. This thought-provoking book examines bread and its role in society and the economy, its impact on health and the environment and industry challenges (which is particularly strong and draws on Wright’s own experiences with his family bakery). I wanted more on how gluten intolerance decreases when “proper” bread is eaten and Wright constantly repeats his credentials but it definitely held my interest.

BREAKING BREAD: HOW BAKING SHAPED OUR WORLD was released in the United Kingdom on 20 March 2025. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

In this important new book, Nancy Fraser and Rahel Jaeggi take a fresh look at the big questions surrounding the peculiar social form known as “capitalism”, upending many of our commonly held assumptions about what capitalism is and how to subject it to critique. They show how, throughout its history, various regimes of capitalism have relied on a series of institutional separations between economy and polity, production and social reproduction, and human and non-human nature, periodically readjusting the boundaries between these domains in response to crises and upheavals. They consider how these “boundary struggles” offer a key to understanding capitalism’s contradictions and the multiple forms of conflict to which it gives rise.

What emerges is a renewed crises critique of capitalism which puts our present conjuncture into broader perspective, along with sharp diagnoses of the recent resurgence of right-wing populism and what would be required of a viable Left alternative. This major new book by two leading critical theorists will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the nature and future of capitalism and with the key questions of progressive politics today.

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The Verdict:

Nancy Fraser is Professor of Political & Social Science at the New School for Social Research and Rahel Jaeggi is professor of practical and social philosophy at the Humboldt University, Berlin. This highly academic book, framed as a conversation between the authors uses (and assumes that the reader is grounded in) critical theory to explore what capitalism is, how it’s been viewed in history, how it can be capitalised and how it can be defeated.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Venture into the world of Alexandre Dumas as you’ve never seen it before, where pirates rule the high seas and vampires lurk on land …

Morgane grew up at sea, daughter of the fierce pirate captain of the Vengeance, raised to follow in her footsteps as scourge of the Four Chains Trading Company. But when Anna-Marie is mortally wounded in battle, she confesses to Morgane that she is not her mother.

The captain of the enemy ship reveals he was paid to kill Anna-Marie and bring Morgan home to France and her real family. Desperate to learn the truth about her lineage, Morgane spares him, leaving the Vengeance and everything she knows behind.

Her quest reveals a world of decadence and darkness, in which monsters view for control of royal courts and destinies of nations. She discovers the bloody secrets of the Four Chains Trading Company, and the truth about her real mother’s death, nearly twenty years before …

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The Verdict:

Emma Newman’s fantasy novel (the first in a trilogy) is a sapphic romp featuring vampires, werewolves and pirates but while there’s fun to be had with Morgane’s ignorance of social mores and colourful swearing, Morgane is one of those annoying characters who doesn’t ask questions and rushes into things without thinking. The plot is uneven, the antagonist two-dimensional and Lisette an insipid love interest whose introduction comes too late.

THE VENGEANCE was released in the United Kingdom on 8 May 2025 and in the United States in 6 May 2025. Thanks to Solaris Books for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

There is no Blurb on the Back, instead there are the following quotes:

“Stevenson had a meteoric rise from the rags of east London to the riches of Citibank, and his book charts that journey … A darkly funny book that makes a convincing case that high finance is as toxic, reckless and deeply cynical as ever.”
The Guardian

“The Wolf of Wall Street with a moral compass.”
Irvine Walsh

“Hilarious, shocking and deeply sad - often in the same sentence.”
Sunday Times

“Terrific … an unlikely hero, brimming with wit and a low tolerance for nonsense.”
Daily Telegraph

“A sharp observer, with a gift for colourful if merciless description.”
Financial Times

“Rude and funny … fast-paced … Gary Stevenson’s account of the frenzy and follies of trading ‘trillions a day’ is powerful … he tells a vivid story.”
TLS

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The Verdict:

Gary Stevenson is a former Citibank trader turned YouTuber and anti-inequality activist. This is an absorbing memoir of his life as a top trader at Citibank but the sections setting out how he rose from a working class upbringing in Ilford, Essex to become a top trader making millions of pounds in bonuses are more convincing than the final section, which charts how he became disillusioned with his job and its role in fuelling societal inequality.