Lia Anshar's Honest Pages

  Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5) Thank you to Anas Hakeem for this gifted ARC. Please visit https://www.anashakeem.com/  for more information about the book. It's a story about Adam, an eleven-year-old orphan who's spent his entire life thinking he's cursed. Strange things follow Adam wherever he goes: paint pots fall on people's heads, bathroom taps mysteriously flood, and bullies seem to follow him around. Worst of all, Adam's shadow has started moving on its own, writhing and stretching whenever he feels strong emotions. He's learned to keep his head down, stay invisible, and pray that no one notices the thing on the wall behind him.  But everything changes when Adam discovers that he's not cursed at all. He's Gushmar, a person born with magical energy called Gushoolah and an "Animal" fused within his very being. Suddenly, he's whisked away from the adoption center and into the magical world of Teraquair, where he finds ...

Genre:  YA Fantasy, Romance Publishing date:  July 6, 2026 Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  IndieBound Synopsis: Prepare for a deliciously dark standalone, set in the same world as Of Flame and Fury, where star-crossed enemies gamble with their hearts, their empires, and the fate of a lost god. On an island ruled by pageantry and pain, power comes at an impossible price. Inna is the perfect heiress to the Pallo crime family: poised, cunning, untouchable. Behind this glamorous facade, she hunts for the sinister truth behind her older sister’s death. Despite the cover-up she’s been led to believe, Inna can feel an enemy lurking in the shadows, or perhaps even hiding in plain sight. Rylan has sculpted himself into a talented thief. His heart may be guarded, but his purpose is clear: retribution for his family, murdered by Inna’s mother. Armed with illusion magic, Rylan plans to steal an ancient riddle from the Pallo vault, one that lea...

Genre: Anthology, Fantasy, YA Fiction Coming September 8, 2026 Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)  The book opens with a girl running across the desert, fleeing soldiers who destroyed her home. Along the way she meets other refugees, all heading somewhere safe. To get through the hard journey, they take turns telling each other stories, stories about jinn, sibling quests, lands being taken over, and magic everywhere, in caves, deserts, mountains, but most of all in each other. These are not just idle tales, they are fables rooted in the myths and legends of the authors’ diverse cultures, echoing the loss, hope, and struggle they face in the real world.  What makes this book stand out from every other anthology I’ve picked up is how tightly it is woven together. Most anthologies feel like separate pieces placed together, but here, every tale is actually connected and builds into one beautiful whole. It’s a structure I’ve never seen done this way before and I loved it so much!  Mind you, t...

  Tittle: Firstborn  Author: M.J. Hastings Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance Publication Date: September 01, 2026 My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ Firstborn by M.J. Hastings is an epic dystopian romantasy with a premise that immediately hooks you. In this world, your entire life is decided the moment you are born. Firstborns are trained to be soldiers and take up arms, secondborns become scholars and take up books, and thirdborns are taken away. Our protagonist, Bryn Ruelle, is a Firstborn facing her final trial. To graduate and defend her country, she must take a life or face exile. But Bryn has never killed before. Just as the pressure reaches its peak, she uncovers a plot that threatens her youngest sister. To save her, she has to team up with an enemy, she must choose between loyalty to her nation and protecting the family she loves. The concept of society being strictly divided by birth order is brilliant and thought-provoking. I really enjoyed seeing how the government controls info...

  Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "It was out here all alone, without a pack or a home. King knew exactly what that felt like. They were both outsiders, determined to survive but unsure how." In King Coyote by Rachael Meyers Jones, we meet King, a twelve-year-old boy from Boston whose world is turned upside down. With his parents going through a divorce, he is sent to spend the summer on the rural side of Vermont with his aunt, uncle, and cousin, Nat. To King, it feels like a punishment. There’s no Wi-Fi, barely any other people who look like him, and the townsfolk aren't very welcoming. He feels like an outsider. But things change when King meets a lonely young coyote. Seeing himself in the misunderstood animal, King decides he must protect it. When his uncle calls trappers to remove the coyote, King and Nat embark on a wild journey to find the animal a safe new home. Along the way, King learns about courage, history, and what it really means to find home. This isn't just an adventur...

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "To care for another person was frightening, vulnerable. It meant another loss for my heart. And now I'd gone and grown fond of someone challenging death itself."  Deathly Fates by Tesia Tsai is a story about Kang Siying, a priestess, whose job is to guide the deceased to their final resting places. Unlike most people, she doesn’t fear death, it’s literally her line of work. But when her beloved father falls seriously ill, Siying is forced to face the harsh reality of mortality. Desperate to pay for his medical treatment, she accepts a high-risk, high-reward mission: travel to a dangerous territory to retrieve the body of a missing prince. However, things take an unexpected turn when her reanimation talisman not only moves the corpse, but also brings the prince back to life. Now, Prince Ren is alive but fading fast. To stay anchored to the world of the living, he needs to absorb qi (life force) by purifying evil spirits, and Siying agrees to help him. What ...