Seventeen-year-old Scarlett, unlike her theatrically gifted parents, is not one to spend time near a spotlight. Scarlett dreams of becoming a renowned fashion designer, where she can flex her creative talents away from a crowd. So it’s no surprise when she sneaks into her school’s costume shop to explore the racks. Unexpected, however, is coming face-to-face with Nathaniel Wilder, a talented theater student who piques a new interest.

With fashion still as her main priority, Scarlett vows to learn how to make a 50s-inspired dress for her best friend, Macie. After all, she needs a strong portfolio of work to help her get into her dream school, the Fashion Institute of Technology. The one problem? She has no idea how to operate a sewing machine. Thanks to Nathaniel’s encouragement, Scarlett decides to shadow the school’s drama teacher to practice her skills, hoping to fuse her passion for fashion with theater…and be closer to him for the spring play.

Scarlett’s designs are unfolding, but a distressing event involving Macie shakes everyone in Scarlett’s world—causing their friendship to falter and Nathaniel to unexpectedly pull away. With building stressors threatening the rest of the year, including a rival who wants to tarnish Scarlett’s reputation, Scarlett must rely on her determined spirit and newfound sewing skills to keep her fashion dreams—and her most important relationships—from unraveling.

First and foremost, I absolutely love what they’ve done with the cover of this book. The first time I saw it I was immediately interested without knowing anything about it.

If you’re looking for a book that will take you right back to having crushes and the drama of high school, this one really packs that punch. There were certainly some things that might make you cringe normally, but they were written really well so that you didn’t have that feeling.

I did really like the different interests that were represented as well as the characters themselves and their development and growth throughout the book.

All in all this was a cute and endearing young adult romance and was an entirely fun read.

Happy reading!

Each spring, Ithaca condemns twelve maidens to the noose. This is the price vengeful Poseidon demands for the lives of Queen Penelope’s twelve maids, hanged and cast into the depths centuries ago.

But when that fate comes for Leto, death is not what she thought it would be. Instead, she wakes on a mysterious island and meets a girl with green eyes and the power to command the sea. A girl named Melantho, who says one more death can stop a thousand.

The prince of Ithaca must die—or the tides of fate will drown them all.

Sarah Underwood weaves an epic tapestry of lies, love, and tragedy, perfect for fans of Madeline Miller, Alexandra Bracken, and Renée Ahdieh.

I’m always up for something that is tied to mythology in some way, so I was excited to pick this one up. While I enjoyed the premise and overall story, I found myself wanting a little more with this one. There were definitely a lot of great aspects to the way this story was told, perhaps being a look at the events and characters of The Odyssey through a different lens, but there were also aspects of it that just didn’t quite get there for me.

The writing style is beautiful and flows really well, that was something I especially enjoyed with the book as a whole and kept me engaged. While the characters were really interesting on one level, I did feel like they could have been built out a bit more. At times it felt like they didn’t have depth so they were hard to really root for. All in all an interesting take on the story that I did enjoy overall.

Happy reading!