Sovereign by April Daniels [Review]

Title: Sovereign
Author: April Daniels
Series:  Nemesis #2
Genres: Young Adult, Sci-Fi
Format: eBook
Publisher: Diversion Publishing
Release Date: July 25th, 2017
Source: NetGalley
Goodreads Summary:

Only nine months after her debut as the fourth superhero to fight under the name Dreadnought, Danny Tozer is already a scarred veteran. Protecting a city the size of New Port is a team-sized job and she’s doing it alone. Between her newfound celebrity and her demanding cape duties, Dreadnought is stretched thin, and it’s only going to get worse.

When she crosses a newly discovered supervillain, Dreadnought comes under attack from all quarters. From her troubled family life to her disintegrating friendship with Calamity, there’s no trick too dirty and no lever too cruel for this villain to use against her.

She might be hard to kill, but there’s more than one way to destroy a hero. Before the war is over, Dreadnought will be forced to confront parts of herself she never wanted to acknowledge.

And behind it all, an old enemy waits in the wings to unleash a plot that will scar the world forever.

Sovereign is the thrilling sequel and conclusion to the Nemesis duology. The story follows a young transgender girl, Danny, that inherits the previous Dreadnought’s powers after he is killed in a battle with a supervillain. In the first book, Danny had to deal with her new appearance, her abusive family and the superheroes from the Legion, as well as the ultimate supervillain the world has ever known. In Sovereign, Danny faces new challenges in the faces of new and old foes alike, including one that threatens to rip the world apart.

Dreadnought by April Daniels [Review]

Title: Dreadnought
Author: April Daniels
Series:  Nemesis #1
Genres: Young Adult, Sci-Fi
Format: eBook
Publisher: Diversion Publishing
Release Date: Jan 24th, 2017
Source: NetGalley
Goodreads Summary:

Danny Tozer has a problem: she just inherited the powers of the world’s greatest superhero. Until Dreadnought fell out of the sky and died right in front of her, she was trying to keep people from finding out she’s transgender. But then her second-hand superpowers transformed her body into what she’s always thought it should be. Now there’s no hiding that she’s a girl.

It should be the happiest time of her life, but between her father’s dangerous obsession with curing her girlhood, her best friend suddenly acting like he’s entitled to date her, and the classmate who is secretly a masked vigilante, Danny’s first weeks living in a body that fits her are more difficult and complicated than she could have imagined.

She doesn’t have much time to adjust. Dreadnought’s murderer, a cyborg named Utopia, still haunts the streets of New Port City. If Danny can’t sort through the confusion of coming out, master her powers, and stop Utopia in time, humanity faces extinction.

It’s no secret that I love superheroes. Very much. I used to appreciate a good one every once in a while, and a bad one a little too often that I would like, but this past year that appreciation blew up. (I blame my friends and the DCEU. Thanks assholes.) I found out about Dreadnought while I was on a animated teenage superheroes high and, well, you can all probably guess what happened.

Dreadnought takes place in a world not unlike ours – it IS ours, just more scientifically advanced and with superheroes. Danny is transgender and her primary worry is how to deal with being a girl when everyone is convinced she’s a boy. It’s definitely not dying-in-her-arms superheroes who aren’t supposed to even be able to die, nor are they fending off supervillains with incredibly powerful weapons that threaten to destroy the world. But as the current Dreadnought dies, he gives Danny his powers and with that comes the best gift she could ever receive – her outside finally reflects her inside. But her family just can’t seem to accept that Danny is a girl. Along with that, she now has to deal with her newfound superpowers, the Legion of superheroes who aren’t all positively inclined towards her, all the while balancing school, prejudice, her vigilante classmate, and her best friend being a douchebag. Oh, and a cyborg supervillain who wants to take over the world.

Listen, if you don’t want to rush off and read this book after reading the synopsis, well, then you’re wrong. (Or just not a fan of superheroes? Which I guess is okay. To each their own.) I definitely did want to do that. Granted, it took me longer than necessary to get to this book, and my expectations where through the roof, and while I can’t say I inhaled it, I can’t say I hated it either.