Category: YA - Alyce Caswell - Author

Alyce Caswell - Author

Delighted & Beknighted

22/8/2026

One Knight Stand (Lady's Knight #2)
by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

Gwen is now renowned as Lady Dragonslayer, a knight in search of more monsters to slay. With her, as always, is Lady Isabelle - still hoping to find a way to escape her guardian, Lord Whimsitt. His latest cruelty is sending Gwen and Isobel out again, without proper rest, so that Gwen can put her seal of approval on a seaside town's tourism venture. But a true enemy awaits them there...

What an utterly delightful sequel that manages to terrify and swoon-ify by equal measure. Gwen and Isobelle feel like old friends of mine by this point and I enjoy spending time with them (even when they're being frustrating about their feelings...but that's YA love for you, ha!). How I wish I'd had these books as a teen. Even now, as an adult, I adore them. There's more than a mere dash of magic here.

Cue "Across the Stars"

10/8/2026

Eyes Like Stars (Star Wars Disney)
by Ashley Poston

Ardent Quay was just looking for the last instalment of her favourite series, but instead she finds trouble - in the form of Sian, an archeologist in need of a quick escape from the First Order. Ardent helps him stowaway on her father's tour ship and soon things get even more complicated when her brother reappears after an absence. Ardent's life may now be in danger... and so too is her heart.

I absolutely adore YA sci-fi/romance and I also adore Poston's YA novels, so this purchase was pretty much a foregone conclusion for me. It's a fun ride that doesn't really deviate from the usual genre blueprints. There's no real surprises here. However, the Star Wars setting is what truly makes it an engaging read... visit the planets you know and planets you don't know. Encounter legendary heroes and villains (happily, they aren't overused here). And fall in love like you're a teenager..

Reliable Old Magic

27/7/2026

Movie Magic at the Wildest Dreams Bookshop (Wildest Dreams Bookshop #3)
by Gracie Page

Mia believes in cinematic moments and happy endings, which is why she's so excited that her favourite book is being turned into a movie - and is being filmed right in Fox Bay! She wants to snag a job on set and maybe go further with her career, but there's a problem. Freddie. The film bro who doesn't like romance. Her competition. Is this supposed to be her big romance? Mia doesn't think so!

This YA/NA series is a fun, safely predictable bit of escapism and this instalment neatly fits the bill. Once again, I find myself wishing that I was in a small seaside town populated by the characters that can be found at the Wildest Dreams bookshop. I will admit that I'm starting to tire of these teen protagonists who all seem to feel the same... but it's still a pleasant read, regardless.

Past Deeds

19/7/2026

The Wish List by Eoin Colfer

Meg Finn has just died at fourteen years old. Her ledger was stacked with bad deeds, so technically she should be going downstairs - but at the last moment a good deed balanced everything out. So now she has an opportunity. If she helps an old man fulfil his wish list, then her good deeds will outweigh her bad deeds and she'll be allowed into Heaven. But Hell won't give up so easily.

I used my pocket money to buy this book a quarter of a century ago, which is quite a terrifying thing to admit in writing. Meg appealed to me as a character back then. She wasn't the usual teen female protagonist and she was only a little older than me. I still like Meg, happily, but this book won't be staying on my bookshelf. It's a bit rough in areas; perhaps some extra editing would have helped. But mostly it was the rampant racism and dashes of fatphobia that put me off. Oh and apparently we should be merciful to abusive stepfathers. Hmm.

Gosh, it still has the Borders sticker on the back labelling it "intermed" fiction....

Content warning: domestic violence, bullying

Spreading One's Roots

18/7/2026

Rootbound (A Tangled Novel)
by Margaret Owen

Rapunzel has only been a princess for a month and feels overwhelmed, like she's unable to give her parents - and their people - what they expect from her. Then an invitation to the mysterious land of Astera arrives and off she goes, desperate to prove herself. Eugene is at her side, naturally, though he wonders how long that will last. But Astera has its own complications for him.

Such was my excitement to get my hands on this book that I added it to my son's Scholastic order last month. Heheh. Years ago, I read every Tangled sequel fanfic I could find, keen to see how Rapunzel's life would change, how she'd grow into her role. Perhaps it's a credit to those fanfic writers of nearly 16 years ago, but Rootbound...wasn't any better than them. It's not terrible by any means, but it didn't reach my - possibly unreasonably high - hopes. It does the job, despite the slow pacing.

I will just note that the book does not follow the show's canon. Which is perhaps one of the reasons I could not become enamoured with it.

Ableism, Ableism

27/5/2026

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

If Maddy leaves her home, the world could very well kill her. She's allergic to so many things and never knows what could trigger her. So she lives inside with her mother, never leaving, never seeing the world - that is, until Olly becomes the boy next door when his family moves in. He soon becomes her guilty secret. Will being with him be the very thing that destroys her?

This is your typical YA novel with a plot that certainly matches the genre, and I always enjoy it when authors use different formats and diagrams to add to the story they are telling us. It's a decent debut, but I know Yoon's work improved after this (I adored The Sun Is Also a Star). Unfortunately, this book is ableist AF. I won't say more because that'll take me into spoiler territory... anyway, perhaps skip to the other books Yoon has written.

Papa-paparazzi

9/2/2026

All Your Wishes (Two Hearts #2)
by Laura Sieveking

Piper's parents are both movie stars and her life is the complete opposite of normal. But normal is exactly what she needs right now, so she's happy to be spending six months attending a regular high school while she stays with family friends who are keeping her identity a secret. Soon she's crushing on a popular boy who's supposed to be a bully, but she is sure there's a different side to him...

A tale as old as high school. There's nothing new here and it's a fairly average book, but these kinds of stories are always going to be popular, no matter the decade. The selling point for me is the fact that this series is aimed towards Australian tweens and written by Australian authors - cheers for that, Scholastic. Oh and how about those gorgeous sprayed edges? The target audience is going to love it.

A Lady Knight's Tale

29/11/2025

Lady's Knight (Lady's Knight #1)
by Amie Kaufman & Megan Spooner

Gwen, the blacksmith's daughter, has grown up on tales of knights and chivalry and aches to prove herself. She masquerades as a man to win a single joust and intends to stop there. Lady Isobelle of Avington, who is the prize for the jousting tournament's winner, desires to escape her fate. A lady knight may very well be the answer to all her problems. But Gwen will need some persuasion...

A quirky and adorable YA/romance that is so sweet you'll definitely need some tea to wash it down while you read (er...when you're not too anxious to turn the page, that is - Kaufman and Spooner sure put my emotions through the wringer). Sure, it's aimed at a younger audience than us Millennials, but if you have always secretly wanted a mashup of Tamora Pierce novels and A Knight's Tale, this is the book you're been looking for. It's a little light on worldbuilding and it's not perfect... and honestly, I didn't care about any of this. It's a lot of fun.

A Ghost of a Chance

2/2/2025

Girl Haunts Boy by Cesar Vitale

Shortly after she steals a ring from a museum, Bea meets her timely end when a streetcar strikes her down. She regains consciousness as a ghost a century later and finds herself haunting her old house - which Cole has just moved into. Cole doesn't believe in ghosts and he's definitely not in the mood to share a bedroom with one. But maybe he and Bea aren't as different as they seem.

This is your typical YA ghost romance fare. The way it was written reminded me of the kinds of stories I inhaled back in the late 1990s and early 2000s - but I have to admit that some of them, just like this book, badly needed more depth. Bea also didn't seem authentically 1920s. Her dialogue felt forced whenever Vitale peppered it with older phrases. This all said, it was a sweet, short read.

In the Beginning

28/11/2024

Solitaire by Alice Oseman

Tori Spring exists. The world exists around her. Apathy keeps her from seeing anything real in her school or her supposed friends - and she doesn't care that maybe something should be different. Then strange pranks start happening at school, enacted by the mysterious so-called Solitaire. Tori has no interest in Solitaire at first. But soon she realises it might have everything to do with her.

I was very disappointed in this book, having read some of Oseman's other work. It definitely reads like a first novel penned by a teenager. I suppose some of my reaction is due to my experience of teen depression and suicide ideation being quite different from Tori's... but also because this book was in dire need of more editing and redrafting (and apparently I read the newer version!). I'm not saying it had to be as slick as other YA novels published in 2014, but I did expect a certain quality.