I loved the first book so much that I gave it a 5-star rating and was absolutely thrilled to be approved for an ARC of the second book - so how did I fare? It's complicated!

I thought after weathering all the ups and downs of Dreadnought, I was prepared for the sequel, but I was SO wrong. This book hurt me on a deep spiritual level because of how much pain and suffering the protagonist went through, and yet I couldn't stop reading. I was up til 3am finishing this off because I needed to know how it ended and if it would all be okay for Danny at any stage EVER. 

Spoiler warning: there is light at the end of the tunnel! But you're gonna feel like a train ran over you by the time you get there.

Props to the author for an addictive and compelling novel - I'm going to be bold and say this is the pinnacle of YA storytelling and we need more like it. I LOVE that the plot is complex and labyrinthine and you need to pay attention otherwise you may get lost! Sometimes I find YA a little too simplified or issues skimmed over because it's for 'young adults', so it's great when authors aren't afraid to load on the convoluted story arcs and heavy themes and trust their audience to keep up.

I still love Danny as much as I did when I first met her in Dreadnought - she's only fifteen, but her resilience, her steadfast determination to do the right thing and refusal to back down in the face of adversity shows such astounding maturity. And yet she's not flawless, she's still a believable, well-rounded character; we see her grappling with the morality & ethics of being a superhero, how she saves the day but enjoys the violence and danger a little too much. It's exciting to follow Danny's journey because I never knew which side she would land on, whether she'd give in to the recklessness of her inner  adrenaline junkie or if she'd pull back in time. 

The diversity in this series also continues to impress - of course we have Danny herself, a trans protagonist, but we're also introduced to Kinetiq, a Iranian-American gender-queer character. I thought it was cool how Kinetiq's introduction shed some light on the world's view of superheroes and how even people with superpowers were still marginalized because of their background; Kinetiq's massive battle and eventual victory over a 300-foot tall rampaging fire-breathing psycho was overshadowed by Danny, because she's 'a pretty white girl with an easy-to-understand narrative'. If that had been the only appearance Kinetiq made, I would've thought nothing of it and been glad for the inclusion of a nonbinary character, but instead April Daniels continued to feature them and in fact Kinetiq became part of the main cast! I'm used to the one 'token' character, and it's such an amazing feeling when you get MULTIPLE characters representing different ethnicities, sexual orientations and diverse backgrounds. A feast instead of the usual famine!

But what frustrated me was some of the returning characters, specifically Calamity and Doc Impossible. Their relationships with Danny were a highlight in Dreadnought, but in Sovereign, both of them failed Danny badly in the first half of the book and I would feel more forgiving if I thought we were meant to recognize these as flaws, but instead it felt like we were supposed to sympathize and forgive them for their shitty behavior because they turned it around later because Danny never calls them out for it or apologizes straight away as if she's in the wrong.

Calamity abandoned Danny, stopped responding to her calls or acknowledging her, and even when they did run into each other, she was judgmental and touchy - jealousy and insecurity are NOT good reasons to treat people like crap! If it was implied that her PTSD after the events of Dreadnought were responsible, I would totally understand, but the way it plays out instead is that she's so overwhelmed by her crush that she can't behave decently to Danny and then tries to guilt-trip her about the distance between them when she's the one ignoring Danny's calls. 

Meanwhile, Doc became an alcoholic, and I would go easy on her if it weren't for the fact that SHE'S AN ANDROID AND COULD PROGRAM THIS PROBLEM TO GO AWAY. If she wanted to wreck her own life, that's her prerogative, but she was fostering Danny and still couldn't pull herself together enough to provide her with a stable home! She actively endangered lives because she was too drunk to function properly and gave Danny incorrect flight coordinates, with the implication being this wasn't the first time, but that wasn't enough to motivate her to do something about it. 

Even once these ladies wised up and provided the love and support that Danny deserves, they had some really odd moral codes at work - a constant theme throughout the story was whether or not Danny's violence was justified. It's an interesting question and one I wish more superhero stories would consider, but it was unnecessarily inserted into the story over and over at really inappropriate times. Danny would be fighting a supervillain and finally, after taking beating after beating, she'd gain an advantage and nearly manage to kill them (justifiably so), but then one of her teammates would pull her back at the last second because it would be 'murder' and they have to be 'better than that'...so then the villain escapes and causes more chaos & destruction and more people die.

Ummm? No? That's not murder? It's SELF-DEFENSE. It's preventing more loss of life! If you're weighing the life of a murderer who is actively trying to kill or enslave millions against the FATE OF THE WORLD, there is no question that killing them to prevent their plans coming to fruition is the right thing to do. And yet Danny had people preaching at her over and over that she can't take a life, it made no sense to me at all. 

In Summary

Things I didn't like:  the decisions made by some of the characters perplexed and exasperated me, and it seemed contrived to add some drama or insert unnecessary obstacles to prevent the story from finishing too soon.

Things I liked: fantastic lead character, insightful and thought-provoking world-building, intelligent plot-lines and an ending that rewards the reader handsomely.

Within the first few pages I could tell I was going to enjoy Sovereign and even more than the first one (always the true mark of a good sequel in my opinion).

I am so pleased I was approved for the sequel to Dreadnought because everything I enjoyed in the first, was amplified in the second. Daniels brings a nuanced complexity to everything in this book: Danny’s powers, her relationships, and her own identity. Right from the get go, Danny is under more pressure than ever before and she’s beginning to crack. Who can blame her? Suddenly thrown into this superhero world she has had immense challenges and incredible opposition.

However, in this book, Danny comes against enemies of all shapes and sizes, one of them being herself. This is by far my absolute favorite part of the book, and what stays with me even days after finishing. When overnight we have the powers to fulfill all our fantasies, good and bad, it becomes a struggle. The challenge to remain a white cape, and not succumb to punish those who hurt us and escape justice is monumental. With this comes responsibility, loneliness, fame, and loss. Danny’s narrative voice is genuine, funny, and heart-warming making us empathize with her and allows us a first row seat into these growing pains. Her transformation through this process makes the entire novel more complicated, more adult feeling, than the first as Daniels explores very real issues of power, corruption, and justice.

This time around, Danny has a few friends to help her who are super cool and diverse. We still had our Calamity, even more complicated after the first book, and Kinetiq (a non-binary cape). My only complaint with these is that we don’t see them enough! I want more of them, especially Kinetiq and Codex. Their interactions are some of my favorite.

(Also I cannot get over how cool a superhero convention would be! Like that just makes my inner self so happy. It would be flat out amazing).
I really appreciated how twisty this plot was. While I thought the first was pretty cunning, I think that Daniels outdoes herself with this one. Not only are our supervillains humorous and dangerous, but the events in Danny’s life are important to the plot and her character. Additionally, the ending is really great and I wonder if there’s a third in the making.

Sovereign teaches us, among many things, that sometimes the worst villain is ourselves. We may fight a lot of battles in our lives, and it is important to hold onto what is true about us. There is a great propensity within all of us to become twisted into a black cape, minus the super powers of course, and our normal challenges of fear, insecurity, and anger can be dangerous forces to be reckoned with. But we define ourselves by our actions in the face of this black hole that threatens to whisper in our ear. In these moments, is when a true war begins, and one that becomes imperative to decide if we succumb or stand up to the darkness, for good, and ourselves.

As if Danielle Tozer didn't have enough drama to worry about in the first book, in Sovereign we see her fighting lawyers to obtain her emancipation from her unsupportive and emotionally-damaging parents, protecting the whole city pretty much alone after the devastation of the first book, still fighting someone from the first book who just doesn't know when to quit, and then also a new character that's like Tony Stark gone bad.

As if that's not enough, she has girl troubles, back-stabbed by people she thought were friends, and then loses something that's literally the only thing that's keeping her going...

So to say this book is action packed is almost understating it. We have a wide range of characters you can't help but love, and you have to keep reading to make sure they all make it through okay in the end. You can follow the fight scenes as faultlessly as if they're a movie playing out in front of you, and everything makes more sense than most with how they need to recover afterwards - this isn't a book where it's like they get shot a dozen times but somehow keep moving. Even though they're superheroes (and villains), they still bleed.

What I really loved about this book (the difficult second book), was how much the characters have grown, and continue to grow in front of us. They're not all faultless and they make mistakes, yet they also don't overreact over their drama - they hurt, but they sort it out like actual humans. For a superhero book, these characters are more real than we usually see in literary fiction somehow.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I can't wait for more!

A couple of months ago I reviewed Dreadnought, which is the first installment in the Nemesis series. I don’t know whether this is going to be a trilogy or a full-blown long series, but it doesn’t state it anywhere so we’ll see, I guess. I was lucky enough to get a free copy of Dreadnought back then and I was lucky again to be able to read this one.

Regular rating: 3.5 stars
Diversity rating: 3 stars (LGBT+, POC, disabled)

Warning: this is the second book in the series, and though I will try to avoid major spoilers, it could happen that you get spoiled. I marked a spoiler for the first book, but there will not be spoilers for this book! So be aware!

When I first read Dreadnought I had no idea that this was an ownvoices book, which just made me love it even more. The writer, April Daniels is also a transgender woman.

Having lived as a girl for months now, Danielle’s struggles as a transgender are not yet over. There are still people (ahem Greywytch) not accepting her as a girl and not only that, the aftermath of her separation from her (abusive) family has left her in tricky situations. In court, she has to fight her father to be able to live with Doc Impossible, while the whole world is watching. The lines between what is right and what is are slowly fading, because through her job of saving people and hunting bad guys, a lot of people get hurt.

“Falling apart can come later, when people aren’t shooting at me.”


In this second book, we meet old and new characters. We meet Calamity (a black morally gray bi superhero with a prosthetic hand), who became Danny’s friend in the first book. Luckily, I didn’t think she was as irresponsible in this book and I liked Calamity a lot more. We meet a few new faces, a genderqueer, Iranian-American superhero called Kinetiq, a magical boy called Charlie and Karen, a half-American, half-Scandinavian death goddess (her own words) who is afflicted by her death mother’s memories (literally). We also meet new enemies (VERY EVIL, WORTH ALL MY HATE), supervillains who want to take over the world, and Dany has to save it.

I loved the added characters a lot, especially Kinetiq, but Doc Impossible and Danielle are still my favourites. Danielle is a strong character, who, even though she always gets in trouble, finds her way out. She makes mistakes, does things she shouldn’t have done, but in the end, you keep rooting for her. Doc Impossible is Danielle’s new mother figure, who also has her troubles laid out for her. *SPOILER FOR BOOK 1* (view spoiler)

There is also some romance added to the story and I won’t tell you exactly who or what but I did like it a lot. I thought it brought some extra dimension to the story and I loved that.

I also loved how well-researched and developed the story was. From the way Danielle determines the course to fly to get to her destination to how calculated every move is. You can see in everything how much time and devotion April spent on writing this book.

“There are two things I never get tired of looking at. The stars from low orbit and human brains.”


So by now, you might wonder why I am not giving this book a solid 4 stars or even more, and I don’t really know. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped. In my review of Dreadnought, I mentioned that I always get confused while reading fight scenes, and that still happened. I am giving this book 3.5 stars, because again it gives so much insight and diversity. The diversity makes this story so important. Every character has its own background story and each of them is unique in a way. I really enjoyed reading this book so I will definitely recommend it if you like superhero stories with diversity. Also if you want a badass protagonist, you’ve found one.

*** I want to thank the publisher and NetGally for the chance to review this book, which will come out July 25th 2017**

That was an intense adventure, I can't believe everything that happened in just one book! The stakes were definitely higher in this book than in Dreadnought and I could understand a lot of the hard decisions that were made and the character arc Danny got that was super hard and emotional to follow because you expected her to act a certain way and she went the other. I actually liked this even more than the first book. While Dreadnought was super important for a starting point and an origin story, this one had a lot more nuances and grey morality and I'm here for those things. Even though this series could have been a stand alone, I thought it was super important that we got to close a few narratives, especially surrounding Danny's parents and Graywitch's transphobia. We got much more information on her goals and her beliefs in this one. She belongs to a trans-exclusionary "feminism" (obviously, it's not feminism) but I think April Daniels knew how important it was to show that women who call themselves feminists can be toxic especially when it comes to trans and non-binary people. I think that's a taste of the real world that was so important to discuss and that felt real to include in this world.

One of the most beautiful things to see in this book was Danny's character development and self reflection when it came to her powers and the right and wrong ways to use them. I thought the on-going discussions on her anger and her moments of dehumanisation of her enemies was interesting and something that I felt fit in this story perfectly. I also adored seeing her and Sara's relationship not only because it's gorgeous to see a trans girl in a f/f relationship for once, but also because they both deserved to be happy and you could tell since the first book that they made each other feel joy when there were dark things happening and that there was something there with the possibility to be explored and we got that in this book. Apart from that, the writing of the fighting and action scenes was so well done and achieved, I got very into them very fast and even though Danny was fighting with a lot of people and we were following a lot of stories at the same time, it wasn't hard to follow. But there were also other scenes like the ones with Graywitch that were super hard to read.

I loved that we got more characters in this book, from her publicist who was hilarious and badass in her own way, without superpowers but with so much brain, to Kinetiq, who is a genderqueer superhero fighting for the rights of queer people with powers, to Karen and her fight to stay true to herself but with these voices that she's trying to fight (I think I would read a book just about her). I also thought that it was wonderful that we got more information on the characters that we already knew from the first book, like Sara and her relationship with her mom, Doctor Impossible and her dealing with the consequences of everything that happened at the end of Dreadnought, all the superheroes and the remainders of the League that followed their own lives and how they were fighting their own demons. Everything was so complex but at the same time we had light moments, when Danny would make a joke in the middle of a fight or ask an autograph of the people that she was fighting and it would make everything more real, it would bring all of them to humanity again and it made it realistic and consistent with the world and the narrative. I just thought that it was kind of long at some points, it would talk for a lot of paragraphs about things that weren't that important and it would lose my attention. That's something that happened in the first book as well. But other than that, this was a solid second book and conclusion of a duology (it's the conclusion... right?)

I'm in the middle of university exams, so I haven't had the chance to write a full review. However, the following brief note is my Goodreads review, and I'll try and expand on it during the summer if I can!

I think I liked this better than the first one, though, possibly because I knew what to expect and wasn't caught out by the tone the way I was the first time. In the first book, transphobia is a major theme, and I'd been expecting a much more lighthearted story, so it totally caught me out. This one had less of a focus on that side of things, though: while Dreadnought/Danny still has to face up to transphobic bigots, it's a more minor part of the narrative, and also I knew to expect it so wasn't caught out. I liked that the book featured a brief discussion of being intersex with regard to chromosomes, and the fact that many people have no reason to know they're intersex, but gender's not as clear cut as it seems. That was a nice touch.

There is SO MUCH going on in this one tiny little novel, and it is just so good. Okay, so maybe it's not one tiny little novel, but I managed to read it all in one sitting, so it seems really short. Maybe it's more that it's really good, so I found it impossible to put down until I was finished.

So this is the second novel in April Daniels' 'Nemesis' series, the first one being the equally amazing Dreadnought. Some would find it incredibly difficult to follow up such an amazing first novel with another of such calibre. Not April, apparently! Danielle/Dreadnought comes back just as powerfully from the very first pages of this new novel.

We start with a conversation between Danielle and her media representative, Cecilia, going over an interview and how she can do better. This is important for a number of reasons. First, it sets up that she's been interviewing, so that when we meet Kinetiq, a nonbinary superhero that Dreadnought has accidentally managed to rile up, it doesn't come out of left field. Secondly, it means that when she's trying to adopt a straight face and give nothing away in various interactions with the media, in court and with supervillains, it's convincing, ALL BECAUSE OF THIS SCENE.

Following that is a Comic Con for superheroes, located down in Antarctica (how cool is that conceptually, though??). This is actually where we meet Kinetiq. There is some stunning dialogue around here that manages to be both funny and serious as well as propelling the plot forward. If people are unsure about whether they are going to like Sovereign, this is probably around the time when they're going to decide, wholeheartedly, YES.

Can we also just talk about the cover art for this book, though? I know that's not technically something that a lot of authors have power over, but it's actually great because it sets the scene for so much about the way Dreadnought thinks about herself, her powers, the world, and is relevant to not just one but two incredibly important plot points that unravel throughout the story.

I think I'm doing pretty well talking about the story without spoilers so far, so let's get straight onto the character of Danielle/Dreadnought herself. First of all, everything is written in 1st person, so it's really hard not to feel like you are right there with her the whole way through. And she talks about some really intense things, like how she enjoys beating up people essentially for money. Several times, with a lot of analysis into the ethics of this. It's incredible, and not something that often gets brought up in superhero writing.

And if that wasn't enough, it then went into the consequences of where such things can lead for the second half of the story. I mean, this was just as perfectly built up as the plot points. April was very clever in her writing. It never seemed heavy handed, but things never seemed like they came out of nowhere for convenience sake, even if point A and point B weren't perfectly and directly linked. Reading this, I felt like I had a lot to learn as a writer, and I was definitely jotting down notes.

All in all, a fantastic follow up to Dreadnought. Just like last time, the TERF character of Greywytch was difficult to read, but I have high hopes that we won't be seeing her in book 3. Regardless, you better believe that's going to be on my shelves as soon as it's announced.

3.5 stars. While the ending was worth it, this is definitely not book one. No one is sadder than I am about the fact that this sequel does not quite live up to book one. I liked book one a lot, but I think this one feels like the same thing repeated and I'm not into superhero novels enough to really care.

Pointless sequels are honestly an epidemic that needs to stop. This entire book felt pretty pointless. Yes, there were a few loose threads after book one, but Danny had a great character arc and got some good friends. Here, it's as if she barely developed in book one. The entire arc is sort of new, but it all feels like a bit of a rehash.

The only “new” thing in this book was the romantic arc. No one is more shocked than I am, but I found Sara and Danny underwhelming here. While they made for a shippable dynamic in book one, I found their romantic buildup here so instantaneous. One minute they're fighting, next they're together. It was so disappointing. I really wanted the tension to be drawn out in a better way, even with just one more angsty scene before they got together, because their getting together was so anticlimactic and boring. They are still cute, and I have to admit, it was awesome to see Danny get a gf. There are SO few trans wlw in media. I think Nomi and Amanita from the Netflix show sense8 are probably the only other example I can think of. I can't think of any in YA lit.

Okay, we need to talk about Graywytch's entire character and inclusion. Graywytch is a transphobe and a villain. The fact that she's a villain does not bother me at all; I can totally understand and appreciate her being villainized by the narrative. My issue is that this very human, true-to-life villain talks like a comic. She comes off as a comical plot device rather than a very real threat to trans people. Using transphobia as a plot device just really rubs me the wrong way. I don't know how to word this, exactly, but I really dislike the fact that a real threat talks like a comic book villain. I feel like she's in here to tell cisgender people “hey, Danny's life sucks” and I appreciate that, but I don't think it's executed well. I feel like she'd be more terrifying and educational to cis people if she felt real, and right now, she feels like someone's parody of a comic book novel.

It's not really bad; Danny's still funny, the concept is still great, the action scenes are still pretty well-written, I loved the inclusion of an nb character. And the ending was fantastic; in fact, I think the ending may have been worth the struggle. All in all, the book was still good. But until the last 15%, I couldn't shake the feeling that book one should've been a standalone. Get Danny and Sara tentatively together at the end of book one, leave it there. Perfect. This lukewarm sequel isn't doing anyone favors.

Danny is trying to pick up the pieces after her big fight with supervillian Utopia. She's getting a contract with the city that'll make her financially independent, she's going to court to win her independence from her mentally abusive parents, and she just might have a way to revive the Legion. She couldn't have seen this problem coming.

Ultra rich guy Richard Garrison contacts her about a project he'd love to involve her in--and she's stunned when she finds out what it is. When she flatly turns him down, he and an old nemesis of Danny's hold her hostage and do terrible things to try to forward their agenda.

Escaping and saving the world are both paramount, but Danny also needs to make sure her friends are ok--after all, one of her closest friends in an identity crisis, and the other has Danny feeling inadequate despite her superpowers.

Sovereign is the second book in the Nemesis series, and this plucky little series about a trans superhero keeps moving along at pretty fast pace. We get some great character development from Danny, who is learning to live with PTSD and a demolished personal confidence. We see all the day to day life issues she has as well as her becoming stronger and dealing with them, making friends and healing.

The second novel is every bit as good as the first, and I really hope another is on the way soon.

The Following Review will be posted on my blog, The Crown of Books on June 24th around Noon EST.

Back in January, I came across the first book in the series, Dreadnought, and knew I wanted to read the book immediately. Luckily, I was able to request the book on NetGalley and was approved. I was so happy that I was approved because I knew that I was going to enjoy it. As a matter of fact, I did. When I was done with the book, I saw that there was going to be a sequel and I knew I wanted it then and kept an eye out for it. When it became available on NetGalley, I pressed request right away. After a few days, I was approved. I am just glad that I was able to read and review both amazing books.

In Sovereign, the story takes place 9 months after Dreadnought's debut, first major battle, and its consequences after it. She also becomes across a new super villain that wants to change the world in a better way. Only that "better" may not be the way you think it is. Danny has to solve how to defeat this super villain once and for all while juggling other duties like dealing with her parents and an old enemy.

Between Dreadnought and Sovereign, you can tell that the two books are connected perfectly, even with the time jump. While Dreadnought's life was adjusted and impacted, Danny's life dealt with similarities between the books, namely her parents and a specific former teammate. I liked seeing that we were dealing with new problems and issue but not all the problems were gone. It gave a nice form of continuity between the books.

Sovereign was just as good as Dreadnought, or perhaps even a little bit better. I loved seeing all the characters again, and enjoyed reading about the new characters as well. They added a certain atmosphere in the story that I liked. Even though the second book was just as good, it faced a similar problem. The world building was still kept to a limit although a new setting for the book was created wonderfully and described well. Only New Port lacked a little bit of world building again. More information was added, but I was still looking for more overall.

One thing I also enjoyed was seeing the relationship between Danny and Sarah evolve. In the beginning, you quickly discover that after the first book, tension has brewed between the two. As the story progressed, you would think that the relationship would not survive, but they were trying, or at least Danny was. When a friend reveals an important information, Danny didn't know what to think, or didn't even realize it. When I came to this point, I didn't even realize it either. I just did not see it coming at all. All I can say is that I liked how the relationship came to be.

If you enjoyed the first book, you have to read this book. It is just as good as the first book and introduces new characters that adds to the story. This was the perfect sequel to the original story.

The start was a little bit slow but once the part with the more action in it starts it gets really good. The story shows different parts of Danny and how she can be defeated in different ways - it is a good story about family, love, action and superheroes and super villains. It is not a typical romance but it still has some romantic parts in it.

This was a really great sequel! It had a slower start which made me worried, but once the action got started it didn't stop. We got to see more of favorite characters from the first book, and got introduced to some great new ones too (Red Steel was my favorite.) Overall, a worthy sequel and I can't wait to see what happens next!