Hoohoo, friends of the Blade!
Do you ever pick up a book that’s just so good only to find out nobody has read it? There are amazing books out there that deserve all the hype but just aren’t known enough and I love slapping beloved books into everyone’s faces (virtually, figuratively speaking), so here comes another post featuring books I think deserve much more love than they are already given. I already made a post of underrated fantasy books, one for underrated fantasy & scifi series, and one small one for underrated LGBT+ books, so check those out as well. This post is about the books I highly enjoyed recently and features contemporary YAs as well as fantasy books!
What is an underrated book, you may ask? For me, it’s a book that has fewer than 5.000 ratings on goodreads.
What books do you think deserve more hype?
You can click on the covers to get to the books’ Goodreads pages.
⚔️ = fantasy | 🏳️🌈 = LGBTQ+ | 🐨 = YA
The Absinthe Underground by Jamie Pacton
⚔️🏳️🌈🐨
For Sybil Clarion, the Belle Époque city of Severon is a wild, romantic dream, filled with cafés, cabarets, and glittering nightclubs. Eager to embrace the city’s freedom after running away from home, she’s traded high-society soirées for empty pockets and barren cabinets. At least she has Esme, the girl who offered Sybil a home, and maybe—if either of them dared—something more.
Ever since Esme Rimbaud brought Sybil back to her flat, the girls have been everything to each other—best friends, found family, and secret crushes. While Esme would rather spend the night tinkering with her clocks and snuggling her cats, Sybil craves excitement and needs money. She plans to get both by stealing the rare posters that crop up around town and selling them to collectors. With rent due, Esme agrees to accompany—and more importantly protect —Sybil, who means more to her than even a comfortable night in.
When they’re caught selling a poster by none other than its glamorous subject, Maeve, she doesn’t press charges. Rather, she invites Sybil and Esme to The Absinthe Underground, the exclusive club she co-owns, and reveals herself to be a Green Faerie, trapped in this world. She wants to hire thieves for a daring heist in Fae that would set her free, and is willing to pay enough that Sybil and Esme never have to worry about rent again. It’s too good of an offer to pass up, even if Maeve’s tragic story doesn’t quite add up, and even if Sybil’s personal ties to Fae could jeopardize everything she and Esme have so carefully built.
I absolutely love Jamie Pacton’s books! My favourite is still her debut, The Life and (Medieval) Life of Kit Sweetly, but Jamie Pacton can write. I absolutely love her prose and the magical worlds she comes up with. The Absinthe Underground is a sapphic fantasy following two friends/roommates/lovers who just try to afford their rent but their secrets kind of catch up with them and so does the magical world of fairies which its very own mysteries. I really adored this book and I’m excited to see what its companion novel will bring!
The Someday Daughter by Ellen O’Clover
🐨
Years before Audrey St. Vrain was born, her mother, Camilla, shot to fame with Letters to My Someday Daughter, a self-help book encouraging women to treat themselves with the same love and care they’d treat their own daughters. While the world considers Audrey lucky to have Camilla for a mother, the truth is that Audrey knows a different side of being the someday daughter. Shipped off to boarding school when she was eleven, she feels more like a promotional tool than a member of Camilla’s family.
Audrey is determined to create her own identity aside from being Camilla’s daughter, and she’s looking forward to a prestigious summer premed program with her boyfriend before heading to college and finally breaking free from her mother’s world. But when Camilla asks Audrey to go on tour with her to promote the book’s anniversary, Audrey can’t help but think that this is the last, best chance to figure out how they fit into each other’s lives—not as the someday daughter and someday mother, but as themselves, just as they are.
What Audrey doesn’t know is that spending the summer with Camilla and her tour staff—including the disarmingly honest, distressingly cute video intern, Silas—will upset everything she’s so carefully planned for her life.
I know that when I pick up a book by Ellen O’Clover, I’ll get realistic, heartfelt characters with depth, an interesting plot and complex character dynamics that change and grow. The Someday Daughter had me in a tight grip, following the story of Audrey and crying with her, being angry with her and for her and learning alongside her. The Someday Daughter touched something deep inside me that still makes me emotional in the very best sense of the word when I think of it. Read my full review of The Someday Daughter here.
Us Against the Likes by Marie Voinson
🐨
An (anxious) travel influencer, a sister (first and forever), a (hopefully) future award winner.
Against her mother’s wishes, Abby Martins drops out of university to follow her dream: share her travel stories with the world.
With over 90 000 followers and her sister’s help, a talented photographer and her forever best friend, Abby’s thriving on this new path. She’s managing her anxiety (for the most part) and she’s (almost) making a living out of her passion.
Winning a prestigious travel influencer award might just be the thing to push her off that ledge.
Desperate to prove herself, Abby steps out of her comfort zone. From Scotland to Italy, from unexpected influencer trips to thrilling collaborations, Abby stretches herself and her own mental health thin for the likes.
But what, and most importantly, who, will she risk to lose on her way?
Us Against the Likes follows a travel influencer, torn between her anxiety, wanting to grow personally and follower-wise and the relationships she has. She’s struggling but she’s doing her best. The book highlights very well how amazing being an influencer can be and the opportunities it can get someone, but it also shows the behind the scenes and how that job influences yourself and those around you. It’s written realistically and I enjoyed all the places mentioned and how they were described. Read my full review of Us Against the Likes here.
Strike the Zither by Joan He
Kingdom of Three #1
⚔️🐨
The year is 414 of the Xin Dynasty, and chaos abounds. A puppet empress is on the throne. The realm has fractured into three factions and three warlordesses hoping to claim the continent for themselves.
But Zephyr knows it’s no contest.
Orphaned at a young age, Zephyr took control of her fate by becoming the best strategist of the land and serving under Xin Ren, a warlordess whose loyalty to the empress is double-edged—while Ren’s honor draws Zephyr to her cause, it also jeopardizes their survival in a war where one must betray or be betrayed. When Zephyr is forced to infiltrate an enemy camp to keep Ren’s followers from being slaughtered, she encounters the enigmatic Crow, an opposing strategist who is finally her match. But there are more enemies than one—and not all of them are human.
I absolutely love how Zephyr is like ‘yeah, I’m the best’ and she actually is the best. What would I give for a mind like hers. Or Crow’s. I really liked how the focus is mostly on the strategists planning out the war behind the scenes and how they interact with each other, their superiors and those around them. I also liked the twist that comes into play a lot. I haven’t read book two yet but I’m very excited to pick it up soon!
Darker by Four by June C.L. Tan
Darker by Four #1
⚔️🏳️🌈🐨
Rui has one goal in mind—honing her magic to avenge her mother’s death.
Yiran is the black sheep of an illustrious family. The world would be at his feet—had he been born with magic.
Nikai is a Reaper, serving the Fourth King of Hell. When his master disappears, the underworld begins to crumble…and the human world will be next if the King is not found.
When an accident causes Rui’s power to transfer to Yiran, everything turns upside down. Without her magic, Rui has no tool for vengeance. With it, Yiran finally feels like he belongs. That is, until Rui discovers she might hold the key to the missing death god and strikes a dangerous bargain with another King.
As darkness takes over, three paths intersect in the shadows. And three lives bound by fate must rise against destiny before the barrier between worlds falls and all Hell breaks loose—literally.
What a wild ride Darker by Four was! Told through different PoVs, we follow three very different teenagers and their path to revenge, proving themselves and basically surviving in general. I liked the magical and slightly apocalyptic aspect of the book a lot as well as the very different characters that somehow work well together. Each character ahs their own voice and their own goals and I liked following along all of them. I can’t wait to read how the story continues!
Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan
Drowned World #1
⚔️
Welcome to Tiankawi – shining pearl of human civilization and a safe haven for those fleeing civil unrest. Or at least, that’s how it first appears.
But in the semi-flooded city, humans are, quite literally, on peering down from skyscrapers and aerial walkways on the fathomfolk — sirens, seawitches, kelpies and kappas—who live in the polluted waters below.
For half-siren Mira, promotion to captain of the border guard means an opportunity to reform. At last, she has the ear of the city council and a chance to lift the repressive laws that restrict fathomfolk at every turn. But if earning the trust and respect of her human colleagues wasn’t hard enough, everything Mira has worked towards is put in jeopardy when a water dragon is exiled to the city.
New arrival Nami is an aristocratic water dragon with an opinion on everything. Frustrated by the lack of progress from Mira’s softly-softly approach in gaining equality, Nami throws her lot in with an anti-human extremist group, leaving Mira to find the headstrong youth before she makes everything worse.
And pulling strings behind everything is Cordelia, a second-generation sea-witch determined to do what she must to survive and see her family flourish, even if it means climbing over the bodies of her competitors. Her political game-playing and underground connections could disrupt everything Nami and Mira are fighting for.
When the extremists sabotage the annual boat race, violence erupts, as does the clampdown on fathomfolk rights. Even Nami realises her new friends are not what they seem. Both she and Mira must decide if the cost of change is worth it, or if Tiankawi should be left to drown.
I love when books are heavy with world building and intricate, complex societies with interesting politics, class and species struggles. I absolutely adored Fathomfolk with its watery city, the mysteries around it and the many very different inhabitants. It felt so incredibly real despite being fantasy. I also really enjoyed reading each character’s perspective, everyone bringing a different angle to the story. Read my full review of Fathomfolk here.
What books deserve all the hype? What hyped books didn’t live up to it for you? Which sequels are you looking forward to read?
Until next time,
