Blog Tour: Madly by Amy Alward - Review and Spellbinding Wallpapers

Hi everyone! I have such an exciting post for you all today! I am participating in the MADLY Blog tour for Amy Alward's new book Madly. In regular fashion, I will first start the post with an in-depth review and for my stop on the tour, I will be sharing with you all some awesome downloadable content! So let's get started! 

Review: Madly by Amy Alward 

Publishing Date: September 29, 2015

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers

Pages: 384 pages

Young Adult Fantasy Romance

The Premise: This new book by Amy Alward brings together alchemists, magics, spells, a hunt and romance. The narrative follows Samantha Kemi who comes from a long line of famous alchemists. Unfortunately with time, people have moved to more synthetic choices as opposed to natural elements so the shop that Samantha's family owns is facing some hard times. There is an opportunity to change this when Princess Evelyn is poisoned by a strong ancient love potion that made her fall madly in love with herself. There is a hunt to find a cure for this and the winner shall bring about many winnings. Samantha looks at this hunt as an opportunity to revive her family name. Things however get complicated when her opponent is Zain Aster, who also happens to be who the love potion was originally intended for, and also who she may be falling for. 

My overall thoughts and review: When I was first pitched this book I was super intrigued. It sounded to me like a hybrid of Amanda Hocking's books and Sarah J. Maas' Throne of Glass series - so I was instantly sold. What I did not expect was a book that was a perfect blend of action and light-heartedness. Alward has put together a pretty magical world and offers a lot of detail to the reader, but does not overdo it to the point where it feels like it is ~high fantasy~, it is the perfect dose. Alward also creates very likeable characters. I instantly liked Samantha and her bestfriend Anita and seeing their dynamic regardless of the tricky circumstances they found themselves in, in which they were opponents. I also really liked Zain instantly - he is mysterious but also does right by his family, which is what I think is the compelling common factor between him and Samantha. I also found the passages of Princess Evelyn and Eve and Lyn quite interesting and funny. I kept going "omg is this for real" but Alward describes it so perfectly, Evelyn was really in love with herself. It was so intriguing! Overall, I really enjoyed this book and the world that Alward created. She offered incredibly likeable characters, an interesting dynamic of relationships all in a face paced adventure that looks for rare ingredients. There is an emphasis on romance of course, but what I really took away from it is the significance of friendship and family which sometimes gets sidelined in YA novels. I really hope that there will be more to come from this world because I really enjoyed it! 

My rating of the book: ✮✮✮✮✮ (5/5 stars) 

Now available for purchase at: Chapters/Indigo

Spellbinding Wallpapers

The lovely individuals over at S&S Canada have created some awesome spellbinding wallpapers for you all. There are 3 sizes available for desktop and even one for your cellphone! Just click on them to enlarge and download to use :) 

1024 x 768 wallpaper

1440 x 900 wallpaper

1900 x 1200 wallpaper

For cellphones! 

Be sure to check out the other stops on the blog tour! :D 

Disclaimer: I received an advanced reader's copy from Simon and Schuster Canada as a part of this Blog tour for consideration/review. All opinions are my own.