I am excited to be a part of the blog tour from Rockstar Book Tours for the next installment in this kick-ass slayer series from Disney-Hyperion, One Girl in All the World by Kendare Blake. Check out my review below, and don't forget to enter the giveaway!
Book Information
Title: One Girl in All the World (In Every Generation #2)
Authors(s): Kendare Blake
Publication Date: January 31, 2023
Publication Date: January 31, 2023
Edition: Hardcover, eBook, audiobook; 352 pgs
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Source: Rockstar Book Tours
Find It: Major Retailers
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Source: Rockstar Book Tours
Find It: Major Retailers
Disclaimer: I received a copy from the publisher as part of a blog tour in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts and opinions are my own. Please note the purchase links above are affiliate links.
Tour Schedule
Week One
1/23/2022 - Kait Plus Books - Excerpt/IG Post
1/24/2022 - YA Books Central - Excerpt/IG Post
1/25/2022 - Feed Your Fiction Addiction - Review/IG Post
1/26/2022 - Lisa Loves Literature - Review/IG Post
1/27/2022 - a GREAT read - Review/IG Post
1/28/2022 - Books With A Chance of Traveling - Review/IG Post
Week Two
1/29/2022 - A Dream Within A Dream - Review/IG Post
1/30/2022 - The Girl Who Reads - Review/IG Post
1/31/2022 - Ohyouread - IG Post
2/1/2022 - Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers - Review/IG Post
2/2/2022 - pluvioreads - Review/IG Post
2/3/2022 - Wanderingwitchreads - TikTok Review/IG Post
2/4/2022 - A Blue Box Full of Books - IG Review/LFL Drop Pic
Week Three
2/5/2022 - popthebutterfly - Review/IG Post
2/6/2022 - @novel.novice - IG Post
2/7/2022 - Eli to the nth - Review/IG Post
2/8/2022 - @amysbookshelf82 - IG Review
2/9/2022 - @froggyreadteach - IG Review
2/10/2022 - Emily Ashlyn - IG Review/Facebook Post
2/11/2022 - A Bookish Dream - Review/IG Post
Week Four
2/12/2022 - travelersguidetobooks - IG Review
2/13/2022 - Book Briefs - Review/IG Post
2/14/2022 - @readerofthewrittenword - IG Review
2/15/2022 - @thebookishfoxwitch - IG Review
2/16/2022 - @drew_ambitious_reading - IG Review/TikTok Post
2/17/2022 - Fall Between the Pages - IG Review/TikTok Post
The Summary
Into every generation, a slayer is born. One girl in all the world . . . sort of.
The Hellmouth has been reawakened and its calling old friends home. Portals are opening between Sunnydale and other dimensions. And the Scooby Gang has too many demons to contend with―real, metaphorical, and sometimes absurdly hot.
Then an oracle warns of a new foe on its way: the Darkness. Could this be what attacked the slayers? And is it coming for Frankie?
New York Times best-selling author Kendare Blake takes readers back to the demon capital of the world in this sequel to In Every Generation.
"A worthy successor to the Slayer stories." ―Booklist (starred review for In Every Generation (Book 1)
My Review
The Slayer and her Scoobies are back!
Set just weeks after the events of In Every Generation, Frankie, the current Slayer, along with her friends, Hailey, Jake, and Sigmund, are keeping New Sunnydale safe from the threats that lurk in the night (and sometimes day). Kendare Blake beautifully transitions into One Girl in All the World, not falling into the second book slump, as she ramps up the danger, the lore, and the mystery of this latest Buffy-verse series.
I don't want to get too much into the plot because there's a lot of things happening! Mystery upon mystery that Frankie and her crew have to unravel, all while dealing with typical high school drama. This is one thing that Kendare does so well, really harkening back to the feel of Season 1 & 2 of the original tv show. While Frankie has this epic "destiny", she is also just a teenager with worries over homework, dating, and groundings (yes, even the Slayer can be grounded).
This book also brings the supporting cast to the forefront, with some chapters told from different points of view. Hailey, Jake, and Sigmund are all really interesting, and give different perspectives to events. But what I really loved where the POVs from beloved previous characters, like Willow and Oz. And librarian Spike?! Like the ultimate mix of my fantasy men... I think that having these "in the know" adults in Frankie's life actually make it easier for her to do her job, even when somethings are at odds. They are there to support and guide, but ultimately understand that only Frankie can shoulder the true burden.
With more and more demons (some very fun past baddies make a new appearance in the book) heading to the reactivated Hellmouth, Frankie and the gang have their work cut out for them, making for an exciting page-turner. An excellent addition to the Buffy-verse, and one that really stands on its own merits, One Girl in All the World by Kendare Blake is a must-read for old and new fans of Buffy alike!
Final Rating
Excerpt
Prologue
The woman cut a slim silhouette against the sunset as she walked along the deserted highway. It was a long walk on the way to nowhere: this particular road had been bypassed and blocked-off— she’d slipped past two very broken down ‘road closed’ signs—and ended on the edge of what was briefly the great Sunnydale sinkhole. Of course that sinkhole didn’t last; it was quickly shored up with dirt to become the shiny New Sunnydale with a much lower elevation.
It was a long walk but she wasn’t tired, she was a slayer, after all, it took a lot more than cooling desert and flat asphalt to wear her out—but she was weary. Weary in her bones, weary in her soul. She adjusted the bag on her shoulders and kept going, until she reached the spot where their bus had stopped after they’d defeated the First. Where Buffy had gotten out and looked over the destruction. Where she had started making plans for all of their futures.
The woman kicked pebbles and watched them roll down the hill, now a nice, sloping incline rather than a sheer dropoff into hell, and frowned at New Sunnydale glittering below. All of those people, living like nothing had happened. Sinkhole? What sinkhole? I’m sure that collapse was just a one time thing. No reason to waste all this prime California real estate.
She scowled down from beneath her hood. They were idiots, all of them. Optimistic idiots. The entire place was cursed; she felt it the moment she portaled in. The wrongness. The wicked current, pulsing through the soil. The . . . hellmouth residue, getting all over everything. She knew she had a slayer’s senses, but there was no way that regular people didn’t feel it. That much seeping evil left a mark. It weaved through a person. It became a part of them, so much so that the whole damn citizenry had evacuated before it all went down, without having to be told. They just knew.
But people were people, and they’d rebuilt it anyway. Just like people had rebuilt the Overlook Hotel. Or the ones who kept on building houses on top of old cemeteries without moving the bodies first. Those were just movies, sure, but the rebuilding was realistic. When it came to their own destruction, humans were predictably industrious. So New Sunnydale had risen from the ashes. And then the red witch had returned to watch over it, and give birth to her little abomination.
The woman swallowed. It felt foolish to even set one foot on that unstable ground, but she did it, one foot after the other, down and down and down, through shrubs and young trees, past silent bull dozers and construction equipment—because even after eighteen years the city was still a work-in-progress—until she reached the street. From there she let her slayer sense guide her, but even if she hadn’t had it she would have known the way to the hellmouth by following the school signs. In grand Sunnydale tradition, the idiots had built the high school again, right on top.
When she reached it she stood outside, staring down the brick and the stark white walls, the flowering vines with their blossoms closed for the night. New Sunnydale High School was clean and crisp, lit by so many streetlights that it was a challenge to find shadows to slip into. I am not evil at all, it declared. But it was lying. She broke in through a back door near the sports field—and by ‘broke in’ she meant opened an unlocked door without permission— and made her way to the basement.
And to the hellmouth.
Being so close to it sent goosebumps up and down the backs of her arms. It made her want to run away. It made her want to scream. And even though there was no definitive marking, no X-marks-the hellmouth, she knew just where it was. And it felt like it knew just where she was, too.
Before she could hesitate, she walked to it and took off her pack, then reached inside to pull out a large, glowing orb. It was bright and almost pretty, the green swirled through with flecks of blue like bits of glitter on a sea of thick paint. It looked a little like a bowling ball, if bowling balls could throb, and it cast the entire space in a strange, ethereal green. Not terribly stealthy. After a moment of deliberation, she grabbed a fire blanket off of a shelf, and used it to cover the orb before setting it down on top of the hellmouth.
She let go of it gently, expecting it to roll. But it stuck. So firmly and so fast she wondered if she’d have been able to pick it up again, not that she bothered to try. That’s where it belonged, after all. A nice, welcome back present for the hellmouth. Something to draw its favorite demons, like a demon magnet, or a demon beacon.
It would give the new slayer something to do, anyway. The woman stood.
“Phase one, commenced,” she said, before tugging her hood down lower and slipping out of the school the same way she came in.
About the Author
About Kendare Blake:
Kendare Blake is the New York Times bestselling author of several novels and short stories. Her work is sort of dark, always violent, and features passages describing food from when she writes while hungry. She was born in July in Seoul, South Korea, but doesn’t speak a lick of Korean, as she was packed off at a very early age to her adoptive parents in the United States. That might be just an excuse, though, as she is pretty bad at learning foreign languages. She lives and writes in Gig Harbor, Washington, with her husband, their cat son Tyrion Cattister, red Doberman dog son Obi-Dog Kenobi, rottie mix dog daughter Agent Scully, and naked Sphynx cat son Armpit McGee.
