yet another bookblr

This was, well, charming! It’s the third installment within the world of The Spellshop, the first two of which were also the perfect cozy fantasy. This one focuses on Marin the supply runner, who wants nothing more than to sail the open sea with not a single emotional attachment to anyone. This is, of course, following a bad breakup. She’s over love, over romance, over being beholden to anyone.

But then the capital city goes up in flames, and she takes on an unexpected crew member—Dax, a master musician. Oh and did I mention the talking wax myrtle, Ree? He’s on the boat too, as a sort of apprentice to Marin. As a key focus of her character, Marin is about freedom, especially the freedom for a person to choose what they want to do with their life. Which is a very awesome hill to fight for, except that the minute Dax shows romantic interest in Marin, and the minute she starts to feel like she might reciprocate, she immediately abandons that virtue and describes in great detail, at great length, MULTIPLE TIMES, how Dax is better suited for the music conservatory. He belongs there, guys—even when Dax is describing how much he loves sailing with Marin, seeing the world, how he felt as though the conservatory felt too constrictive. Even when the talking plant calls her on her double standard, Marin will not let it go.

It got to the point that I was just—over it. Of course it ends happily, as cozy fantasies are wont to do, but getting there?? There were quite a few “oh, he’ll never want to stay with me, he belongs in the capital, entertaining the elite!” passages that were completely unnecessary. Like, girl—we get it.

I will say that I adored how the previous characters from the Spellshop world were woven into the story. I love familiar faces, I love seeing outsider perspectives to the stories and characters we know. There was *one* aspect of the previous character interactions that almost sent me into an absolute rage, but I can’t say much more than that without spoiling the damn thing, so ye be warned.

Still, it was a light-hearted, important yet relatively low stakes fantasy. The author does a good job introducing diverse couples into her worldbuilding, but I’m still waiting for her to feature some wlw protagonists. Where are the gays, Sarah Beth?? On a more serious note, there’s a bit more of a content warning in describing the impact of the revolution in the capital city, whereas the first two novels were fairly removed from the aftermath, but it’s not graphic or particularly angsty.

Overall, you liked the previous two installments, you’ll likely enjoy this one. I do recommend reading the others first, due to the interwoven characters, but it could technically serve as a standalone.

This one immediately intrigued me, as it checks two of my favorite boxes—sports romance AND a royal romance. It was nice that both protagonists are slightly older than some of the other romances I’ve read. Not middle-aged by any means, but old enough to have successful careers and for soccer player Ash to worry that she may be too old to participate in the next World Cup year. She and Princess Victoria start the story with fully formed, independent lives, so that it truly is a coming together—one of their hardships in getting together is that they have difficulty finding time to see each other. Luckily for all the readers, they succeed.

Between photo shoots and social visits and soccer practice and royal engagements, they fall further and further in love. It was very sweet to read, and as someone who often finds the smutty scenes little more than a distraction, I actually liked most of their scenes together. That said, I did feel like any time emotional communication needed to happen, they just had sex instead. This might have been an intentional choice by the author, but it did make me roll my eyes a bit.

However, the narrative did lose me a little when Victoria hesitated just a little too long in going public. Throughout the story, Victoria claims that she doesn’t want to hide her sexuality as a lesbian anymore. But when they’re publicly outed, Victoria doesn’t use it as an excuse to come out. She caves to her family and toes the royal line with little protest. I was proud of how Ash handled, but also honestly felt frustrated. It seemed like a cop out, and a weak one at that.

Set Point is a wlw sports romance, in which a notoriously hot-headed pro tennis player Chloe Murphy is paired with returning-from-an-injury pro tennis player Inés Costa for a charity tournament, then as hitting partners in preparation for the upcoming tournament season. And that’s about where the plot ends.

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this very much. The narrative arc is a flat line, and the characters are indistinct from one another, despite being from different countries and voiced by two different narrators in the audiobook. Inés’ injury—a key aspect of her character—is relatively vague: I initially believed it was a stress injury, but then later in the book an “accident” was referenced, so maybe I missed something, but it was not clear. And Chloe’s only defining characteristic is that she has an anger-management problem… but that’s not reflected anywhere in her character off the court.

I also felt that the protagonists lacked chemistry. They said the right words, I guess, but I didn’t quite feel it. I knew I was not liking the book before the halfway point, but I was interested enough in the prescribed climactic sports match that I wanted to see how it ended, so I kept pushing through. I shouldn’t have.

The ending was a huge let down, and the epilogue happily ever after felt unearned. So while my recommendation for this book while reading was “only if you’re desperate”, the ending took it down to “eh, you can probably give it a miss.” I’m really bummed, because I was looking forward to a lady gay sports romance.

The idea that an uber fan could be transported to the world in which they’d invested so much time, attention, and love is a recipe for a good time. Which is the case here, when Maggie awakens in the world of her favorite fantasy series with her knowledge of the plot and lore intact.

While our protagonist starts with literally nothing—naked in a muddy ditch— she certainly isn’t helpless or in need of saving. Maggie soon proves herself to be canny and capable, and starts to broker her unique knowledge for both resources and allies, and all while doing her best not to render herself irrelevant by changing the course of the story too much.

The ensemble that gathers around Maggie is what really makes the story; everyone has their own sort of attachment towards Maggie, and while at first it’s transactional, it soon grows to true devotion. And while we do end up in the trope of the “shadow daddy”, it’s possibly the best executed version of that I’ve seen in a while.

I will however mention that a) it took a bit for me to get into it, but once I did I was hooked, and b) the plot of our story is pretty expansive, since the world that Maggie transports into is a brighter version of Game of Thrones-with-magic, but it ends pretty abruptly, and the epilogue leaves us on a cliffhanger. Which kind of sucks, because this beast is a chonker (as in, at 50% I still had 11 hours of listening left), so I felt like as a reader I deserved something a bit more satisfying.

That said, it’s not enough to dissuade from recommending this to anyone who has ever gotten overinvested in any kind of media ever. If you have, this is for you-- it feels like a love letter to fandom, in a way.

I actually happened to stumble across this as an audiobook on NetGalley, and was again surprised to be approved! I loved The Bodyguard, which was my first book getting back into the rom-com genre in a while. Since then, I've read quite few more, but The Shippers remains only my second foray into the works of Katherine Center.

Our story opens on Jo's wedding day, moments before she's due to walk down the aisle to marry her long-time boyfriend. But we the readers immediately understand that Jo is significantly uncomfortable-- in her dress and with the day in general. But when her childhood best friend Cooper makes a last minute appearance, he helps her escape, leaving her groom at the altar. Which is fine in and of itself, but then weeks later Cooper also unexpectedly shows up for the wedding of Jo's sister Ashley-- which is taking place on a cruise. Shenanigans ensue as Jo enlists Cooper's help in wooing another guest: her childhood neighbor and crush, Finn.

I enjoyed the vibes of the cruise that worked its way in around said shenanigans; it was the perfect dose of summer fun as I endure the last throes of winter. Cooper was delightfully on board (pun included) for anything Jo suggests, even as it's clear to everyone but Jo that Cooper has heart eyes for her. The story does rely on some miscommunication tropes, but honestly I didn't even mind. It was still delightful.

The only thing I didn't entirely love is how Jo describes and interacts with literally any woman she's not related to. Actually, no, it applies to her cousin too. It gives strong "I'm not like other girls" vibes without actually saying it. And sure, it's mostly because she's territorial of Cooper without realizing it, but it still doesn't sit right in today's age of reading.

I'm going to be perfectly frank... I've read a couple of T. Kingfishers before this year, but earlier this month I read A Sorceress Comes to Call, and it cemented T. Kingfisher as an auto-read for me. So when I saw the audiobook for Wolf Worm on NetGalley I immediately hit "request", fully resigned to the fact I wouldn't get it. T. Kingfisher is too big and my little blog is too small. BUT I GOT IT!

Our protagonist Sonia is a naturalist illustrator hired to paint plates of a reclusive entomologist's collection for his upcoming publication. (Give me a super niche career anytime, I'm already seated.) Except her new employer's house is in a post-Civil War North Carolina town, where "the devil walks in these woods, ma'am", and there's fearful rumors of "blood thieves" in the area, and she's warned not to wander the woods at night.

What follows is a gothic tale of horror and secrets, as Sonia witnesses the strange behavior of not only the local wildlife, but the locals as well-- her employer included.

All that said-- I was chuckling for most of this book. Not when it got creepy, like-- 'the horrific truth is revealed' creepy. But the majority of the story before and even after, I was chuckling out loud in the office. T. Kingfisher just gave Sonia such humor to her character, not in a jokey/clownish way, but in the witty way she observes the wood, and how she speaks internally.

Also, I really loved how we saw the world through the eyes of Sonia as an illustrator/painter. One of the very first descriptors is how the sky as a layer of watercolor blue with guache clouds splotched atop it. Just beautiful. And now, several books in, I don't think I've seen T. Kingfisher use any repeat characterizations-- every single one of her protagonists have had distinct voices, which I feel is so rare lately. I absolutely loved this book.

I will not be finishing this book. I started reading it to form my own opinion after hearing the AI allegations. While listening to the audio version makes it harder to identify anything as clearly AI, even early on I found it difficult to continue. I described it to a friend as "...clunky, and the prose is densely and unnecessarily purple, if the purple were splotchy and tedious to wade through."

I am a little disappointed, as the summary advertised elements that I look for in a story when I need a specific, niche itch to be scratched. It's unfortunate that I was unable to engage with it.

I really loved this. The first bit felt a little rocky, but I think it was just some cognitive dissonance with me reconciling Supercorp with Eleanor and Dani. Once I did, I was hooked.

When Eleanor Cromwell’s friends force her to take a summer vacation (disguised as a work trip) to a small Ontario town, the last thing she expects is to fall in love with the local car mechanic. And yet, there Dani Cooper is, looking hot in her oil-stained coveralls. The problem? Riverwalk is an old company town that fell on hard times when Eleanor’s father closed the local mine, which means the Cromwell name is well and truly hated by everyone who still lives there. Which means her summer becomes a slow burn romance strung on the tight rope of hiding her identity and her purpose for being in Riverwalk—to reassert her company’s influence in town.

There’s a lot of great things I liked about this book: the characters, the feel of a long summer, the smut—all things I loved about the fic it was based on. But there is one thing Jazz does that I really loved that is unique to the novel, and it’s the way that Eleanor’s stay in Riverwalk slowly changes her, and how we the readers experience that change with her. The pinnacle of the shift is when Eleanor—who gives her name to the locals as Nora—literally becomes Nora in the narrative.

“Eleanor answers the phone” becomes “Nora answers the phone”, and it’s such a wonderful touch. I love it so much. I also really liked that by the time the real world catches up with Eleanor, Jazz does a really great job of creating a shift in Eleanor’s reality. It’s jarring and heartbreaking and wonderful.

Despite its rather clunky title, Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend is an entirely charming lesbian romp through a Victorian London debutante season. Its dual-POV introduces us to Beth, a fresh-on-the-scene deb (yes, they call themselves debs which certainly sparks some millennial queer nostalgia) who is looking for a quick and prosperous match to keep herself and her mother from being out on the street at the end of the season, and to Gwen—the seasoned debutante whose family wealth and status has allowed her to spend several seasons doing everything *but* finding a husband.

Gwen immediately takes Beth under her wing, and their fast friendship starts innocently enough… until soon Gwen starts feeling jealous of the young gentlemen taking an interest in Beth. And for Beth, her far-fetched hopes of finding a love match quickly take the shape of having Gwen at her side, forever.

The book has the LaCroix flavor of Bridgerton, in the sense that this fictional London seems slightly more accepting of lgbt diversity—but not so much that either of our protagonists are under the delusion that their love would be accepted by society. And when they’re eventually torn apart? I cried, y’all. I was legit crying at my desk. In the office. At work. I read it via audiobook, so hats off to the narrators, no joke.

Of course, a break-up does seem to be part of the formula for the romance genre, but here it was made fresh by the fact that it was not a frustrating bout of miscommunication, or some argument between them that blows out of proportion, but rather the world around them forcing Beth and Gwen apart. And there was so much charm and personality, I absolutely loved it.

I will say there’s an epilogue that feels a little unnecessary, but it made me laugh, so I’ll take it. This novel also seems to be the first of a series, but since the next book focuses on a different couple featuring two gentlemen, I probably won’t continue, but I would definitely return to the author in the future!

I read this one as an audiobook arc from netgalley, and I was definitely hooked from the start.

Anderson in Bloom is a lovely second-chance romance from Jennifer Dugan that centers on our protagonist, Andy—a former child star  who (literally) fled Hollywood and disappeared into the mundanity of an East Coast tourist town. For years, she's built a new life as floral designer named Annie, but when Nicky, her former co-star and ex-girlfriend, announces a tell-all book of their shared history, Andy fires off an angry text that launches a chain reaction that leads her back to happiness—and herself.

Going in, I was a little worried that the florist shop of it all would lead us a little too deeply into trope-town, but the floral theme managed to remain a pleasant motif without consuming the entire story.

Andy and Nicky were highly compelling as our main characters. It’s from Andy’s single POV, which I found refreshing after having read several dual-POV romances lately. The singular POV allowed for confusion and intrigue for the reader as we follow along with Andy, and made the eventual anguish less contrived.

The romance arc evaded quite a few of the common clichés, and allowed the romance being built to continue its upward trajectory of enjoyability to keep going even as they fell apart as a couple. Not only that, but the journey of coming back together felt earned, rather than a contractual obligation to maintain its romance genre status.

One of the few gripes I have is that the side characters fell a little flat. They started as ride-or-die, and ended that way, so while it was a relief for me to see Andy has people in her corner, that was their entire personality. I will also note that even though the story is set in New England (I think), there’s not a lot of setting to it. It’s a story that could happen anywhere other than Hollywood, and we the readers really wouldn’t know the difference.

I don’t necessarily count that as a reason to avoid reading, but only as an element that cements this story as being entirely character-focused. I would recommend this story to anyone who loves a good, therapy-informed romance, featuring adult women who have worked on themselves during their time apart, and learning about themselves and each other along the way. I would also recommend this to fanfiction readers who love a good “Hollywood AU” featuring their favorite ladies— based on vibes alone. Because Nicky and Andy will very quickly become some of your favorite ladies.

It's about a witch in a world where witches are raised and live in isolation of each other, with the understanding that living closely together invites unwanted interest and attention. But when a lonely witch stumbles upon a trio of young witch girls living together in one house with normies as their guardians, she starts to examine and dismantle the restrictions she'd been raised with, and finds the connections she's been longing for.

It was so soft and warm and gentle. The stakes were important but not butt-clenchingly high, which is a nice change from some of the other books I've been reading lately. The story arc was more of a rolling hill situation than a sharp staccato of highs and lows.

I've already read Uprooted by Naomi Novik, so I was relatively confident that I would enjoy this book. And I did! Dragons in Napoleonic Europe is definitely right up my alley, and the fact that Temeraire (the dragon) can talk and develops a personality is even more so.

The plot is pretty straightforward: a British warship takes a French ship that has a dragon egg in its hold. They seize the egg as a spoil of war, it hatches, and one of the navy officers ends up becoming its rider. They train for battle, the climactic battle ends in victory, we're golden.

The real strength is in the characters. Unfortunately, it's mostly dudes. Even though an entire breed of dragons accept only women as their riders, we meet only three female riders/riders-to-be. And two are related. And none of them pass the Bechdel test.

It also doesn't help that the narrator of the audiobook was a guy whose female voice was just breathy and overall vapid-sounding. Even though none of the women riders were actually vapid. I just needed to see them more and get to know them better. Is that so much to ask?

One of the subplots was learning more about Temeraire's breed. He's identified as an "Oriental" breed fairly early on, but not much is known about his abilities, so we all mostly find out about them when they manifest in real time. Which is cool! I liked it.

I can't say much for the plot. As I said, it's pretty basic. But that said, I do think that it serves a good foundation for what I believe is already a series. I'm just late to the party. I'm actually pretty disappointed in myself for how late I am. I mean-- dragonriders are 100% my thing! So maybe I can also hope that the lady riders are featured more heavily in later books.

Overall-- I enjoyed this a lot. There's a line that made me laugh out loud, so thank you Temeraire! If you like Pern, Eragon, or How to Train Your Dragon, it's hard to go wrong with Temeraire. He's an absolute gem!

I loved this book. It isn't a challenging read, but it's a novel that is heavy on ladies supporting ladies, and the relationships between all the characters feel totally organic and well-developed.

It centers on two sisters-- the eldest, Halcyon, has trained for years as a hoplite, and the younger sister, Evadne, remained at home living a quiet life. Everything changes when Halcyon is suspected (and then convicted) of murdering her training partner. Evadne volunteers to assume half her sister's sentence, and ends up serving the portion of the sentence that would have been spent serving the family of the victim-- who just so happens to be Halcyon's commander, his wife, and their remaining son. Halcyon keeps the portion of her sentence that starts with years at the local quarry, then several more years locked away in the local prison.

But what seems like a simple sentence split between two sisters quickly turns into a secret quest and political intrigue in a world where magic is real and a secret evil faction of the royal cabinet seeks to find and control the godly relics that grant significant magical abilities. Both sisters become embroiled in a battle of good versus evil, each in their own way.

I loved the way the sisters were portrayed, and the way the author captured the essence of sisters who've spent a long time apart. There's no room for the usual bickering you might find between siblings who've spent every day of their lives together, and what's left is total devotion to the other, even as their paths seem to take them in opposite directions.

The author also plays with the traditional concepts of strength and weakness, which was really compelling to watch as the story progresses. Similar to other recent books, there is some romance, but it takes a backseat to the love the sisters have for one another. I really have only one disappointment in the book, which is only because I had a theory for the plot that didn't pan out.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for strong female/sister friendship, greek mythology (vibes only), and false dichotomies in fiction.

SPOILERS AHEAD

I found this one exclusively through TikTok, and it was marketed heavily as a love triangle that resolves into polyamory. Which it kind of was, but imo doesn't really count. More on that later. It was also marketed as Pacific Rim meets Chinese mythology, which it was.

We start with a world where young men and women with high chi levels are recruited to pilot giant mech suits called Chrysalises, except in this world the patriarchy is hella strong, so the women recruited pretty much serve as a chi batteries for the men who actually do the piloting, until the women inevitable run dry and die in battle.

Our main character Zetian volunteers as a pilot specifically to murder the pilot who drained her older sister. Except when the time comes for their first time to pilot together, instead of being a battery for her "pilot", Zetian fights for dominance in the chi world and ends up killing her male partner. There's actually a great moment after he dies where Zetian shoulders her way out of the mech suit and dumps the guy's body on the hull as the news helicopters circle around and broadcast everything in real time.

Of course, this gets her in trouble, because Patriarchy, and what follows is a speedrun of the hunger games complete with makeovers and navigating high society and public interest in order to survive. She's paired with a legendary pilot, but who has a reputation of killing girls because his chi levels are just so great. He feels bad about it though. Oh, and he's also a convicted murderer (from his pre-chrysalis days). Which is okay because he killed his rapist brothers.

The love triangle comes in the form of Zetian's mutual childhood crush, who finagles his way onto her publicity team to stay close. He develops a crush on Zetian's copilot, and the copilot likes the childhood crush too, so, voila, polyamory. Right? Well....

The thing that gets me is that I never got the sense that Zetian fell in love with her copilot. She definitely softens towards him over the course of the novel, but it still felt like the eventual threesome was because the guys liked each other, and not that Zetian loves them both. It's not the end of the world. I just went in with certain expectations due to Zhao's own TikTok vids, so I was left wanting more.

[And we'll just ignore the fact that one of their little throuple is presumed dead by the end of the book. It's not burying your gays if the author is queer, right? Right?]

One thing this novel actually surprised me with was the fact that Zetian isn't exactly.... likeable. She is so full of rage and resentment and distrust that she ends up being really fucking mean to almost everyone around her. But you still end up rooting for her! The world around her deserves to burn, so she's well justified. It's just an unusual angle most authors don't take in regards to their female main characters, that it's a refreshing moment of "I don't relate to this character at all, but I still root for her."

I like the Chrysalises a lot, I just wish we got a bit more lore around them. They're all tied to different elements, just like chi itself is, and it's a relatively unknown area for me so I would have liked to see more world building in the story of it. In fact, that would be my biggest complaint for this book-- it felt like two parts of a trilogy in one, and as a result feels rushed and the world around the characters is kind of glossed over except for the Patriarchy of it all.

I really enjoyed the book overall. Perhaps not as much as I was hoping or expecting to, but I'm definitely in for the sequel, whenever it ends up being released. I know there's some background issues between Zhao and their publisher, but I'm hopefully we'll still see it soon.

Just posted this on my main blog by mistake, and even though I copied the whole post before deleting, it only pasted the first paragraph. So fuck this review, I guess.

This book is about a woman named Seraphina who is a half-dragon (secret) serving as a court musician (not secret). It has a bit of romance, but isn't the main focus. I would say the main focus of the plot is keeping Seraphina's heritage a secret, exploring its potential, and also some political intrigue between humans and dragons.

Even though it's politics and dragons, it's not like game of thrones at all, which is honestly to its benefit. And even though there's people who are half-breeds, it's less about blood heritage and more about watching history be made and seeing political turmoil unfold in real time from the point of view of a single person just trying to navigate it all on her own.

Humans and dragons struck a treaty 40 years before the start of the story, and there's factions on both sides either for or against the treaty. Some dragons can take human form, but their transformations and activities are heavily regulated. Even so, some dragons and humans enjoy being able to intermingle with each other, and others of both species who want to see the other wholly eradicated.

So you know, just your normal run of the mill current events kind of story.

Other than that, I don't really have much to say about it. It was totally enjoyable, but nothing really sticks out as a "omg you have to read this" kind of moment. It was low bandwidth to read, which I really needed. I'd recommend this to any one who is looking for a pleasant period piece about dragon/human politics and some romance on the side.

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Sisters of Sword and Song by Rebecca Ross