Book Review + Blog Tour Contest: Revenge & the Wild by Michelle Modesto

Today’s review is part of the official blog tour for Revenge & the Wild. Be sure to keep reading after the review for more about the book and its author, as well as your chance to win a copy!

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A seductive, wild western fantasy, Revenge & the Wild by Michelle Modesto is a genre-bending masterpiece — filled with (yes) revenge, adventure, danger, intrigue, romance, and so much more.

The two-bit town of Rogue City is a lawless place, full of dark magic and saloon brawls, monsters and six-shooters. But it’s perfect for seventeen-year-old Westie, the notorious adopted daughter of local inventor Nigel Butler.

Westie was only a child when she lost her arm and her family to cannibals on the wagon trail. Nine years later, Westie may seem fearsome with her foul-mouthed tough exterior and the powerful mechanical arm built for her by Nigel, but the memory of her past still haunts her. She’s determined to make the killers pay for their crimes—and there’s nothing to stop her except her own reckless ways.

But Westie’s search ceases when a wealthy family comes to town looking to invest in Nigel’s latest invention, a machine that can harvest magic from gold—which Rogue City desperately needs as the magic wards that surround the city start to fail. There’s only one problem: the investors look exactly like the family who murdered Westie’s kin. With the help of Nigel’s handsome but scarred young assistant, Alistair, Westie sets out to prove their guilt. But if she’s not careful, her desire for revenge could cost her the family she has now.

This thrilling novel is a remarkable tale of danger and discovery, from debut author Michelle Modesto.

With the most unexpectedly delightful combination of genres and themes, Revenge & the Wild offers readers a stunning, page-turning thrill ride. With landscapes and imagery both familiar and bizarre, Modesto titillates readers’ senses with each new layer of this captivating story.

Everything about this book is enchanting: its characters, its setting, its magic and whimsy, the danger and intrigue and lust and tension so thick you can almost feel it. There is so much going on in this book, and in any other author’s hands, I’d worry that it would become clumsy and clunky. But not so here. Modesto has masterfully balanced every element, creating a triumphant masterpiece of a book that will have readers rooting for Westie at every turn, and dying for more.

(Alas, I believe this is a standalone? It has an entirely satisfying ending — but truth be told, I would happily read about more adventures with these characters and in this world. Can I have a Costin spin-off, please???)

Look for Revenge & the Wild is in stores February 2nd, and be seduced.

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Title: REVENGE AND THE WILD

Author: Michelle Modesto

Release Date: February 2, 2016

Pages: 384

Publisher: Balzer+Bray

Formats: Hardcover, eBook

Find it: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks

Michelle Modesto is a writer, hockey fanatic, lover of most art forms, terrible cook and her social skills aren’t that great either. Her debut YA novel, REVENGE AND THE WILD comes out from Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins, early 2016. She lives in Northern California in a double-wide mobile asylum with two mastiffs who don’t listen to her and two teenagers who also don’t listen to her.