Genre: Fantasy | YA

Release Date: Expected 20th July 2021

Publisher: Uproar Books



After living her whole life with chronic anxiety and OCD, Cassandra is used to thinking the worst; to thinking there's death and destruction around every corner. Therapy helped teach her to cope and her Father has been as supportive as he could be but nothing has been the same since she lost her mother.

This time it's different though and she knows it. Colin, the boy next door and her newly found friend is going to due. It's happened once before, her visions becoming devastatingly real and now it's happening all over again.

Desperate to cheat death and save Colin from his untimely death, Cass finds herself enrolled in an Organisation of Scryers and Soothsayers, for people like her, that promise to help to her find a way to change the things she sees. But as she desceneds further into their world of magic she learns that changing fate and cheating death always comes with a price - and she's got to pay it.

Foretold is the first installment in the Scryers series, inspired by the authors own struggles with OCD that made this story so authentic and yet so magical at the same time. Right from the second line, I was locked in. I wanted to know Cass he world she lived in. She was introdued to us as a naive, quiet, somewhat sad young girl who played trivnometry and ate lasagne with her Dad every friday night and she grew and evolved in front of our eyes to a powerful, magical woman.

There were those quiet sparks of romance scattered throughout, but didn't take focus away from Cass and the friends she met on her journey who recognised that someone who is constantly having to fight a battle with their own mind is a true badass.

This story was full of familiar and comforting classic tropes without being boring - the universe and the lore created were rich and engrossing, although there were a few points throughout the story I felt that I didn't really know what was going on and maybe things could have been explained better.

I can't wait to see what Cass & Co get up to in their next adventure.



RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to Violet Lumani, Uproar Books, IBPA and Netgalley for this ARC in return for an honest review.

I love so much about this book! I can't believe I have had the pleasure of being able to read it a bit early. This is a story of future-telling, friendship, family, and accepting who you are. It is the start of a series that it seems, and I am highly anticipating the sequel. The characters flowed together so nicely. The friendship between Cassandra and Regan is so beautiful. I relate to them as I have a friendship sort of like that. I love the intentions that Cassie has through the plot line and how not all good things means it will last through the long run. I was blown away by Lumani's ability to throw me into the world by the flow of the words and the entrancing plot line. I thought the pace was great and the concept was so new for me.

I am beyond excited to give this five stars! It is soon released, so go get your copies, because this is one you will not want to stroll past in the bookstore.

**I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review!

I spent most of this book waiting for the plot to really pick up and then when it finally did I wasn't all that excited about it. The love triangle aspect was okay, but didn't hook me, but I will say that the characters are well written. I did enjoy reading through Cassie's POV and witnessing her dealing with her anxiety and OCD. I thought that aspect was really well done. So were the friendships. The ending was kind of a shock but then again, not really, overall, I was intrigued with the book and how it took neuro-atypicalness and merged it into a fortune telling type thing--that was cool and something I hadn't read before.
*ARC recieved from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

What a great start of a trilogy. I am definitely looking forward to following the remainder of this story.

I AM THANKFUL TO THE PUBLICATION HOUSE AND HOUSE FOR PROVIDING ME WITH ADVANCE READERS COPY AND ALL MY OPINIONS ARE NOT INFLUENCED BY ANYONE
IT WAS GOOD BUT I THOUGHT IT WAS QUITE SLOW AT TIMES

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

"Foretold" by Violet Lumani is about a girl, Cass Morai, who has OCD and is struggling with the death of her mother. When she has a vision of a boy dying in front of her, she is quickly swept up into a whole new world of scrying and magic.

This book wasn't for me. Maybe it's aimed toward a younger audience? (I'm 22 and mainly read YA). I don't think that the author knows how to write teenagers in a way that doesn't come off as semi-cringey. The plot was generic, easy to follow, and the dialogue just felt stilted and a bit off. It's not /bad/, but it's just a little off, if you know what I mean. I couldn't relate to any of the characters and I generally felt neutral about everything throughout the whole novel.

The one plus of this book was how OCD is portrayed. As someone who also has it, I found myself really resonating with the struggles of the protagonist. Many people think of people with OCD are just neat, but the author gets into the intricacies of intrusive thoughts and compulsions. For me, that's enough to give this book 3 stars. I think it's important for mental illnesses like OCD to be more common in popular media so people understand them properly.

Foretold is an interesting book that I don't think I'm the right audience for. The concept was incredibly appealing, and the cover is gorgeous, two reasons why I requested it on NetGalley, and I'm glad I read it, but I'm not the target audience. And that's fine! Violet Lumani is a talented writer, and the way she describes OCD and mental illness is spot on. I've never seen OCD written using the techniques that she does, and I think she does so effectively, giving the reader a deeper understanding of just how stifling OCD can be. For readers of this genre, I'm sure they'll love Foretold, and I hope to see its success!

The cover drew me in, so beautiful! Foretold starts slow, I couldn't get through the first couple chapters easily but its packed with magic and action. The author's skill at describing OCD was on point

The first thing that attracted me to this book was the cover (so gorgeous!) and from reading the synopsis it felt like my kind of novel, but after finishing it I feel slightly underwhelmed.

The story focuses on main character Cassie (love the name) who suffers from OCD and imagines the worst possible situations - to make matters worse these are actually visions. When she foresees the death of her neighbour, she needs to learn how to control her abilities and try to change the future.

First off, it took me a long time to read and this is really unusual for me. This was mainly because I found the book quite confusing to start with. I actually wondered if I’d missed a chapter because I didn’t understand the concept of their magic at all and it felt like I’d just been thrown in to this random world where all these people can suddenly see the future. There were a lot of different types of magic and the characters go to all these classes to learn different techniques, but I just felt nothing was really explained. How did they get these abilities? Where did the group come from? How was her mum involved? I have so many questions and there just weren’t any answers!

I did like the portrayal of Cassie’s OCD, and felt how this affected her life and her choices was accurate.

The book really picked up in the last half but then I felt like the story was quite abrupt when it ended so although I feel quite underwhelmed overall I will probably choose to read the sequel just to see what happens next.

This book is actually quite fun. You have Cassandra, who finds out that she's magical enough to enter a magical school. However, something happens in real life that's bothering her so much that she can't really concentrate at magical school, and her OCD won't let her just get on with her life. I enjoyed the teenage relationships Cass has with her friends, and of her "discovering new territories" with Colin, but eventually it got a bit too Young Adult for me.

First of all, thank you Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I had very high hopes for this book, but they unfortunately weren't fulfilled. I was really looking forward to reading it, because the cover is absolutely gorgeous and I loved the fact that we got OCD representation. However, in my opinion the characters were poorly developed and the plot was weak. I might try something else out by this author in the future, but I wouldn't recommend picking this up.

This book had many good qualities: a heroine with mental illness and dealing with grief, a magical world right under her nose that she's inexplicably drawn into, supporting characters that deal with their own trauma while helping their friend, and an overly supportive parent.

Sometimes I didn't quite understand how the scrying worked. Even with explanations it was difficult to keep straight but I enjoyed how Cassie learns and develops as a person and scryer.

Foretold starts slow and then the story unfolds as the main character discovers a whole new world that she and members of her family belong to. The story is engaging and the only problem I had with it was the whole OCD constant insertion into the it. I hope the next book does not put so much emphasis on OCD. It distracts from the main story.

Foretold is a debut fantasy novel that starts off at a slow pace but picks up when the story starts to unfold itself, packed with action, unique magic, and charming characters. However, what stood out the most to me was Lumani's skill at accurately depicting OCD, anxiety, and grief.

This book was just not for me. It took me a month plus to get through it. It sounded amazing and the cover is pretty but I was, unfortunately, not a fan.

4/5

I will say it takes a special kind of book to make me stay up til 4am to make sure I finished it in one sitting. This book 100% — could not put it down.

I agree with other reviewers that the middle was a little slow; however, the middle did not spare me from crying along side the main character. The ending felt like a whirlwind, but I felt it fit the plot well.

One of my favorite things from this book was how Cassie’s OCD was portrayed. I felt raw with her the whole time and her internal monologue really hit home how these experiences ran her down. I have never read a book with such honest depictions of mental illness and wow it truly changes the reading experience.

I am extremely excited to read the next book. 2022 can’t come fast enough.

CW: death, grief, blood, cutting

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with an eARC!

First of all, let me say that this book is not what I was expecting, and I was pleasantly surprised by the end of it. To be honest, I was confused by the first 10 chapters of the book, mostly by the descriptions given to the secret organization of soothsayers. However, as the story progressed, I understood more, and the story got better. There are several plot twists in the story. The main one was a little too predictable, but the details surrounded it made the story unique and set the tone for the next book.

The thing I loved the most about this book is that the main character has to deal not only with her "magical" problems, for lack of a better word, but also with the struggles of a mental illness, which in this case is OCD. For me, this detail made the main character more real, and it also made the book a little educational, which I think is amazing.

I had the opportunity to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review, thanks to NetGalley and Uproar Books.

Interesting start but got a little boring towards the middle. I did not end up finishing this book as I felt no real connection to the characters nor did I connect with the plot. However, the book represents mental health well and the struggles of OCD. I think it was a solid 2/5.

2/5

Honeslty, I am a little conflicted. I thought the premises sounded really interesting: Cassandra, who has OCD and always imagnies the worst possible situations, learns she has the ability to see and maybe even change or influence the future.

Sounded really good on its own, was disappointing. I liked the way the book handled OCD and panik attacks, portraing them in a realistic way instead of romanticising it, as it is the case in a lot of other media. The rest of the book was just average: the world building was one of the biggest issues, there was this big info dump at the beginnig and that was it, at the end I still had no idea how the magic system and the scrying even works. The characters were just meh, nothing special nothing too bad, I just couldn't bring myself to care about anything, not even Casse. The romance was again just kind of boring, while it was obvious Colin was going to be the li, it just happended so quickly, they hung out and bam she was in love, which wouldn't be a bad thing, it just came out of nowhere and felt rushed.

While I'm glad there wasn't a love triangle in this book, I definitely feel like there's going to be one in the next book: cute-neighbor-who-is-already-boyfriend-and-loves-her and then hot-kinda arrogant-everyone-crushes-on-heartbreaker-guy. The set up is there and honestly I'm surprised the whole oh do i love him or the other guy didnt' happen.

(It is written in present tense, something I'm not a big fan of, I don't know wheter it was that or the entire writing style, maybe it just wasn't for me)

Now onto the biggest "problem": the pacing. The first half was just plain boring, I had to push myself to even pick it up. The second half was a little better, but the only really interesting part that grabs your attention are the like last 10%.

All in all it was just a really average book, it had its issues but it wasn't horrible.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I really enjoyed this book. In a nutshell, Cassandra Morai is diagnosed with OCD after her mother dies when she's 13. The story begins when Cassandra is 16 about-to-be-17. When her OCD gets really bad, she gets glimpses of the future. Cue meeting the boy next door, Colin, who Cassandra has glimpsed dying. Cassandra's Aunt Bree (father's sister) introduces Cassandra to an organization of scryers and she the story follows Cassandra as an initiate trying to learn the magic she needs to save Colin on the down low. This organization, called the Theban Group, as a very Google Headquarters-meets-Ministery-of-Magic vibe. There is also something much bigger as work with this organization, which seems to be warring with outside, rogue scryers.

This story is mostly about Cassandra trying to save Colin, but the author also lays the foundation for whatever the plot is going to be in the next book (at least that's what I assume). There is a lot of things that happen and Cassie is used as a pawn in what seems to be organization v. rogue scryers, but none of that culminates in a big scene in this book. Which is why I assume it's going down in the next book.

I loved the characters. Cassandra's inner monologue is one of my favorites of all the MC's I've read. She's witty and intelligent and just a little on the cynic side. I loved the representation with regard to mental health. Cassie's OCD wasn't like a token trait so the book can boast mental health representation but still treat the character like she basically doesn't have it. Cassie is constantly battling it and it causes a stir in a few places. It's really well done. I also love the side-kickish BFF Regan. She's like a season one Caroline Forbes, and I get the feeling she's going to be well-developed in the second book. Griffin is the Ron to Cassie and Regan's Harry and Hermoine, and he plays some vital roles and provides much comic relief. Then there's Sebastian, who is supposed to be in a love triangle with Cassie and Colin, but I don't really see it yet. I see that there's a draw there, but it kind of happens fast and it's not like he's a sweet-talker or anything. There are a few romances between characters, and none are mature romances. It's all very beat around the bush or insta-love which is more believable because the characters are 16-18 years old. I would not expect nor would I believe a romance written like it was between 30 year olds. So, I actually liked the younger love aspect and how it was written. And again, I feel like it's something this author will do a good job at propelling forward in the next installments.

This was such a good book, I'm very impressed and can't wait to read the next one!