Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

What is it about: Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has.
In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls.
On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food and waterlilies to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone.
Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House. But who are they and what do they want? Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims?
Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous.
The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.

My Thoughts: Oh how much I loved this book!
I've buddy-read this which made it even more of a magical experience.
We were both lost for the first 20 pages, and were trying to figure out what the heck was going on. But once inside the story, I could not put it down. I was scribbling down notes whilst reading as kept having random thoughts and I hoped to give myself some answers before the book gave them to me. Boy I was wrong every single time. 

Piranesi is such a wonderful character and I just felt so sad for him. 
I was scared that it would be one of these books with an open ending, but I was glad to see it came to a conclusion - although I would have liked to see a different ending, more tragic.
But if you haven't read it yet, please do. It will take you through a strange but wonderful journey

Foretold - Violet Lumani

What is it about: Cassandra sees death and devastation all around her. In vivid detail.
It’s the price of living with her OCD and extreme anxiety. In every situation, Cass imagines the worst possible fate for everyone in her life. Her dad in a pool of blood after a break-in. Her beloved older neighbour, homeless. A splinter in her finger turned to gangrene.

But this time, it’s not her imagination. The boy next door, Colin, is destined to die. Cass has foretold a real death before; she knows this is a true vision.
Desperate to save Colin's life, Cass immerses herself in a secret organization of soothsayers that promises to teach her how to change the future she foresees. But as she descends into their hidden world of divinatory magic and predictive technology, she discovers there's always a price to pay for unravelling fate's strands. And cheating death will cost her everything.

My Thoughts: First things first, the cover is just beautiful - look at it!! I got attracted by it and made me read the synopsis - which then drew me to read the book.

I gave this 4* just because there were only a couple of things I struggled with. It has a bit of a messy plot at the beginning, it was slow to start with but I wanted to see where it was going and towards 60% of the book, it became better and better. So now I am looking forward to reading the second one, specially after the ending! OMG that ending. I did not see it coming at all, had to re-read that part a couple of times to make sure I read it correctly the first time.

Said so, I really enjoyed the concept of this book. The trilogy has great potential and it looks like in this first book, we only discovered a small part of what can be a wonderful new world. 
Some elements were based on mythology - which is always a plus for me; some parts made me chuckle and others made me gasp. 
I liked how the characters were built, except for Noah, which I am still struggling with and hope to have some sort of closure in the next book. 

Thank so much to NetGalley and Uproar Books for the ARC of this book.
Foretold is the first book of 'The Scryers' trilogy by Violet Lumani and will be published on 20/07/21 - will definitely get the physical copy of this.