Let Them Read Reviews!

Read 7/6-7/7

Four Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was immediately hooked by this story! We start with Maggie, a professor at a magical university going to a woodland masquerade celebrating Beltane. She intends to dance the night away with her best friend and fellow professor, Dahlia, when she ends up sharing the best kiss of her life with a stranger. A few weeks later she can't get the kiss off her mind but has no hope of finding him as they never removed their masks and exchanged fake names. She has to try and put the mystery man out of her mind when her work is upended by a magical accident that forces her to share office space with the new hotshot professor, Arthur, who despite causing the accident and appears unrepentant about the entire incident.

Maggie and Arthur had great chemistry and I enjoyed seeing them interact with each other. There is some classic tension that comes with a workplace romance book. This one is a bit of a departure because many workplace romances I've read have the two set up as rivals competing for something. Here they're just forced to occupy the same space while attempting to fix Arthur's accident and return the university to normal. My main issue with this book is a mild spoiler. One of the characters figures out the identity of who they kissed on Beltane fairly early on in the book. However, they don't share this with the other person and it tainted their developing relationship for me. It's not until the other character realizes whom they kissed and confronts them that the truth comes out.

Read 7/3-7/3

4.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This was such a fun time, Julie Murphy really knows how to write a yearning man! I had to scream and pause reading when a certain candle made an appearance. I'm getting a bit a head of myself though. The book opens with Vera having recently lost her mother to cancer. Vera put her screenwriting dreams to the side to care for her mother when she grew sick right after Vera graduated college. She's been stuck as a personal assistant to her friend, Brody, from college who's made it as an actor in Hollywood. After her mother's funeral Vera's grandmother, Ruby, announces she's sold the house the three of them were living in without consulting Vera and is off to live in her dream retirement community. With few options Vera turns to Brody who lets her stay in his pool house. While Brody is away filming Vera learns he planned on firing her before her mother passed despite their 17 year long situationship and the fact that she's the one who keeps his life running smoothly. She promptly quits, packs her few belongings and her geriatric Pomeranian and makes the drive out to her grandmother's retirement community. Illegally crashing on Ruby's couch Vera runs into Eli, who is now a doctor at the community and we learn Vera's ex-husband! There are a few scattered chapters from Eli's perspective in the past as we learn the delicious details of how they became husband and wife and what went wrong. Eli is obsessed with Vera and is yearning like no one before has ever yearned. This man was down bad and I loved seeing all the little things he did and the ways he tried to support Vera as she worked to rediscover herself and what she wanted out of her life.

Read 7/1-7/2

Three Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and DAW for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I'm sorry to say this one didn't really work for me. The book is told from the point of view of one of three heads of the dragon Garrodigh. Garrodigh lives in the wilds and has been struggling since the loss of his fourth head, One of the 3 remaining heads is convinced he's a human and his suffering a psychosis imagining the other 2 dragon heads. One head isn't occupied with much more than finding his next meal and putting whatever he can into his mouth. This leaves Centerhead to steer the ship as it were, his memories are a little faulty after the loss of Lefty but he knows humans are to blame and when an opportunity arises for him to get revenge he happily takes it. Unfortunately for him, he may find himself more sympathetic with the plight of some humans than he was anticipating.

Read 6/15-6/16

Four Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I'm always going to want to read a dragon book, there's just something about the creatures that tickles my brain. This book comes up with quite an interesting concept a person can bond with a dragon and gain the ability to craft metal. As society is what it is of course there is a hierarchy of metal and dragons with silver at the top and iron at the bottom. Farren, our main female character, sits in the middle as a copper crafter. Farren loves dragons and is determined to follow in her father's footsteps in caring for them. To do that she must earn the all-around scholarship to attend the prestigious Revers Academy. In direct competition with her for the scholarship is James, a silver racing prodigy who Farren finds overly self-confident and arrogant. She's especially frustrated by him because his silver status means he has more than enough money to not need a scholarship as she does. When James is injured during a race and his injured dragon is transported to Farren's family's dragon sanctuary the two find themselves interacting a lot more.

For all those that love a male main character who falls first and yearns hard I've got just the boy for you. James is down bad for Farren and has been for years. He turns into such a silly awkward person around her and it was a lot of fun to see Farren misinterpret his comments as rudeness or arrogance when the boy simply cannot figure out how to talk in the face of her beauty. I enjoyed the dragon veterinary aspect here and it was really nice to see this mixed in with the family's dragon sanctuary and focus on rehabilitation. The metal classification of the dragons is not just related to the magic the humans can do when bonded but is from the dragons themselves. They coat their scales in metal to protect themselves and can lose bits of the metal when shedding scales. However, human greed has created a practice of poaching the animals and stripping them of their metal scales to sell on the black market. Farren's family maintains a safe haven for those dragons they can find and save from this beastly practice.

Read 5/1-5/3

Four Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Union Square & Co. for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Another disclaimer of I always find it so much harder to review sequels than the first book. I want to be conscious of those who have yet to pick up book one but may see this review pop up somewhere. So I will do my best to be as vague as possible for This Monster of Mine spoilers. This book picks up several months after the first and really throws us right into the action that's been happening since we last saw Sarai and Kadra. While the first book hinted at elements of it this book goes all in on the political intrigue. We get to see the repercussions of some actions at the end of the first book in a way that I truly love. I think This Monster of Mine could easily be read as a standalone, the ending is satisfying for the story. What This Blade of Ours does is say, "Hey, you thought everything was wrapped up nicely, well here's what happens when we have to live with the consequences of our actions." Sarai acts perfectly here. We get to see her use her beautiful mind to the utmost to try and hold everything together. I also loved the stronger influence of the gods present in this book. We see them interact with characters a lot more in here than in the first book.

Read 6/21-6/21

Four and Half Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I'm going to make an odd request, please wait to read this for a rainy day. A rainy summer day will be best but you need to wait for a storm. This made the entire experience feel so immersive. I've never considered the practice of storm chasing. I'm typically an inside person and doubly so when there's any kind of inclement weather. I really appreciated the care Heather Frances went into in describing how chasing communities work, including the importance of supporting the locals as they drive through and set up among their small towns.

Read 6/12-6/14

Four and Half Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a delight! I really wasn't sure what I was getting into with this one. I dabble in historical romance every now and then but it's not one I typically find myself drawn to. I really enjoyed every moment I was reading Scandal of the Summer. Ruby and her two friends, Alice and Tamsin, are done with being outcasts in London and want some freedom to pursue their interests without the disapproving eye of the ton on them. So they hatch a scheme to pretend to be lady's-in-waiting to an absentee foreign princess and invite themselves into her vacation home. Currently occupying that home is Malcom Archer, once a captain in the navy, he's somehow landed himself a job as the steward of the princess's estate. His meager salary isn't enough to support his loyal crew so he's turned to smuggling and con schemes to stay a float. When Ruby arrives Malcom knows she can't uncover his schemes and so does his best to run her and her friends out of town as quickly as possible.

Ruby and Malcom had great chemistry and I loved their respective friendships with those around them. Ruby wants to leave London for her own sake after another embarrassing moment but she also wishes for her friends to be able to find happiness outside of societies rigid expectations. Malcom's driving force is protecting his crew. It's made clear that they've supported him through something tough and as their former captain he feels responsible for securing their financial and physical safety. I really enjoyed the shenanigans the crew got into and how increasingly silly they got as they tried to get the women to leave and return to London.

Read 6/5-6/6

Four Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking Penguin for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Oh boy, how to talk about this book? I suppose we'll start with the beginning. I struggled a lot for the first third of this book. The writing style and how the author was choosing to convey information to us made it incredibly clear that this was a debut novel. There's a lot of moments early on where I felt some character traits of the various cast were very clumsily introduced. There's also quite a lot of telling not showing which generally I don't pick up on as much but here it was like being slammed in the face. At once point Simran is describing base personalities of herself and the two cousins she grew up with and it's literally she's the "golden child", my other cousin is the weird middle child, and I'm "damaged and tragic." I just found it so odd. We could have discovered this about the cousins organically but instead weird info dump moments about the family are just thrown at us.

All that said the book does eventually find its footing. Once we start to get really into the hijinks of Simran's cousins helping trick the family into loving Leo I found myself enjoying the book much more. I usually love a wedding background in romance novels and that was half the reason I really wanted to read this book. The other half is based on the absurdity of the premise. Cultural differences mean that if Simran wants her family to approve of her relationship with Leo she needs her controlling aunt Veena to believe she's the one setting up Simran and Leo. I liked the chemistry between Simran and Leo throughout the book. There are plenty of cute moments where they're pretending not to really know each other but they can't help but moon after the other. I did at times feel that Leo fell a bit too into the idea of a perfect man. He's just so agreeable to anything and remains optimistic to everything happening around him. The author does attempt to give him an attempt at a dark past or at least something in his life that isn't perfect with an old injury that ruined his professional hockey prospects but it's brought up a bit randomly and is another bit of the novel that felt clumsy.

Read 5/8-5/8

Five Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not always in the mood for cozy fantasy but sometimes the stars align and it's exactly what I need. Juniper has spent the last several years living and working with his best friend, Mo. Some might describe his life as quiet but he loves working on their farm, going out to the pub (maybe picking a fight or two), and settling down for the night by the fire knitting and telling stories with Mo. When Juniper picks a fight with the wrong person he and Mo are unexpectedly forced into a quest to slay a dragon on behalf of the king.

Over the last few years of reading I'm discovering some things about my preferences and one of those is becoming very clear, I will always love a character that is a little shit. A little whiny, a little selfish, a little stupid, someone who would be more closely aligned with chaotic neutral. There is just something about these types of characters that I find so amusing and I love being in their heads. Juniper happily strolls into this category. This man would never survive a day outside were it not for Mo. Mo, full name Morningthall, occasionally Morn, is the hyper-competent man of all of our dreams. Mo keeps Juniper alive and helps point his moral compass in the correct direction.

Read 5/4-5/6

3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book starts with a bang and has an extremely compelling first line that I believe will hook most readers. Many of my favorites things appear at the beginning of Deathbringer. We have a bit of murder and mystery, a unique magic system, a school setting with complex house rivalries, and just a hint of some godly interference with the mortal plain.

I found myself immediately enraptured with following along in Viola and Sylas’ journeys. On one hand we have the outsider who’s grown up hating her magic and pretending to be an ordinary girl. On the other we have an heir to one of the oldest magical linages struggling to keep his focus on his goals after the recent loss of his father. When murders start piling up Viola and Sylas are forced into each other’s orbit where they must learn to confront some of their fears and prejudices.

I was all in on the book until about the 60-70% point when as I was working to untangle the mysteries of the plot it became harder to ignore some choices that were being made in the writing. First off, we are in a secondary world but the author chose to date the time period in the late 1930s. That brings certain expectations of our own views of attitudes and attire for the 1930s that I didn’t feel were followed at all. There doesn’t seem to be any important reasoning explained for the dates beyond my best guess that the author liked having them for her own timeline. I really don’t feel like they added anything for the story and in fact took a bit away from it when each chapter is telling me the date and I’m reading about extremely modern speaking individuals. While I was initially very intrigued by the magic system and the school setting the more I read the more the school became background noise. I can’t explain how the year looks for the students and how one is judged and able to move up in rank to the next level of education. They frequently just pass ranks out or demote students ranks for infractions. The glossary at the front of the book indicates it’s due to mastery of the types of magic but we also learn that purist’s rule and people should only be practicing one magic type. Anyone with more than one must have their magic sealed or will end up imprisoned. So how are they mastering multiple fields of magic? None of it was clear to me. I think there is only one school lesson on the page and it wasn’t a big classroom setting but seemed more akin to a student seeking one on one help from a professor during office hours.

The magic which was enchanting starts to feel basic and unexplored. We have three main classes of users that can then be split a bit further and is shown at the start of the book in a glossary. Since we have two point of view characters we learn a bit more about Aspieri and Mortemagi magic. Though learn is a strong word, I have a vague notion of what they can do but I don’t see how them studying at a school would benefit the Aspieri as the whole book they just have their snake relics bite people. There’s not much active magic involved on their behalf. The Mortemagi we don’t really learn much because the character is never in the classroom. We see other Mortemagi call up undead puppets and skeleton constructs but it’s not really explored how that all works beyond they’re drawing on some lifeblood power.

Read 1/29-1/30

4.5 stars

Thank you NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for providing me a copy of Queen of Faces in exchange for an honest review.

I was a bit unsure of this in the beginning, it took me a little while to feel immersed in the world but at some point suddenly I was devouring pages and just couldn't stop reading. This book is full of shocking twists and complex conspiracies that kept me on the edge of my seat. Alternating between Ana navigating life at the cutthroat Paragon Academy and her new contract as a secret mercenary working for the headmaster of the academy to bring down an enemy the masses have believed to be dead for years. This is the bit that stops me from being fully invested in the story. Ana has no real training but like many plucky heroines is able to navigate extremely deadly and risky situations with if not ease, than a surprising amount of success where there likely wouldn't be.

Read 11/2-11/2

Four Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book has absolutely beautiful flowing, lyrical prose. Reading this was just such a treat for me. From the get go Kalie Reid perfectly inserts the reader into her world with lush detailed description. Maeve has been training all her life in the Abbey as an iconographer. Living under the Abbey's rule means she's been isolated and kept under thumb of the elders. Taught to never question the decisions of the elders, she's must blindly trust their judgment and embrace her devotion to the saints above all else. A chance to move up in the hierarchy appears but for it to be hers she must first travel outside the Abbey and paint the icon of an exiled saint. Jude has been living on the fringes for the past eight years. Sent away from the Abbey once he discovered some of their secrets, he has been desperately searching for ways to fully free himself from their grasp. Upon hearing that the small sanctuary he has created will be breached by a puppet of the Abbey he is desperate to undermine her goals and make sure the Abbey cannot reassert their dominance over him.

My absolute favorite part of this novel was the relationship between Maeve and Jude. This is truly a slow burn but it unfolds in the absolute best way. There is a scene where I just about lost my mind, where though they still don't trust each other, when Maeve is feeling poorly Jude takes care of her.. Reid made this scene where Jude brushes Maeve's hair one of the sweetest and most sensual things I've read. I was screaming while reading! I loved the two of them discovering all the similarities they shared and how the Abbey let the both of them down. Both left isolated and desperately craving love and connection, they must learn to trust one another in order to find happiness.

Read 10/13-10/17

Four Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Young Readers for a copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have not been this immediately drawn into a book in such a long time! From the first few pages I was locked into this incredibly interesting world. Set within a near future of our world mysterious holes of darkness have opened across the world with dark creatures escaping and causing chaos. Sascia, our main character, has always been drawn to the dark and she's developed a side hustle taking tourists on illegal fishing trips to capture their own little dark creatures. This supports her as she takes remedial classes to maintain her spot in the coveted Umbra Program, a small group of young adults who have show exceptional skills related to studying the dark. There are mechanical geniuses who have developed special light technology to combat the more dangerous dark creatures as well as those more interested in the biology of the creatures and plants that live and thrive in the dark. Sascia's specialty is entomology with further specialization in Darkmoths. As someone who has had an interest in entomology in the past I really enjoyed seeing Sascia interact with her insects. I adored the descriptions of the dark and all of the creatures the writing did such an amazing job making this setting sound so beautiful and magical. The closest pop culture reference I can think of would be the fauna from the Avatar movies with their luminescence.

Books that center around time phenomena always make me a little nervous and this one was no exception. Sascia comes across a never before seen humanoid creature from the dark who is insistent that she has betrayed them. The following week that same creature appears looking younger with no recollection of the hatred they held for Sascia. Shortly after a third, older iteration appears asking Sascia for help. I think it can be incredibly difficult to play with time and maintain the plot in a way that makes sense and does not contradict itself. Somehow Kika Hatzopoulou manages to pull off this ambitious novel in an extremely satisfying way, you will not be disappointed.

I also enjoyed the queer-norm aspect present throughout the book. The creatures of the dark have the ability to shift between the sexes and can choose how they present whether that be male, female, or intersex. As the book goes on and we learn more about the Dark we learn that there are more gender designations present with in the world. Within our own side of the world Sascia and her Umbra cohort display various queer identities and discussion around identity is always discussed with care and respect.

Crawling out of my hole because you all must read this amazing book that released today! I haven't been the same since I read it.

Read 6/10-6/13

Five Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

Read 2/1-2/2

Four Stars

I enjoyed Hafsah Faizal's previous duology The Sands of Arawiya and I have been eagerly anticipating A Tempest of Tea since its announcement several years ago. I always feel a little trepidation when books are compared to Six of Crows, it just became so popular that any book with even a hint of a heist had Six of Crows slapped on as a comp title. A Tempest of Tea really delivered in the right ways for me. There's a heist, there's a lovable but morally gray crew, and there's some fun twists throughout the way. Add in some vampires and I'm fully sold on the concept of this book!

Arthie was a great protagonist. She is the owner of a tea shop that is often on the wrong side of the law due to nature of the tea she sells. Arthie is a lot of fun, she's highly intelligent and always have a trick up her sleeve. One of the first few scenes of the book where we see her outwitting the people ransacking her shop was so tense and I adored seeing her smarts shine through so early on. I also enjoyed slowly discovering her secrets throughout the book, although I do feel there was a twist that felt quite easy to spot early on. I really enjoyed Jin, Arthie's adoptive brother. He's a charmer and I loved all his interactions with another major character, Flick. Flick's storyline was maybe my favorite of the main characters. I really enjoyed her growth throughout the book. Rounding out the our heist crew are Matteo and Laith. I have opinions on both but they're quite spoilery so I'll have to simply stop at they exist you'll have to form your own opinions about them.

While the majority of this was very fast paced there were a few moments where I felt the flow of the story got a little odd and moments that dragged despite the action that was happening. I was also just not into Arthie's romance in this book. I felt like it occurred way too quickly and did not feel organic at all. While I wouldn't classify this currently as having a love triangle because one of the character's interest did not read as anything more than lightly flirty for most of the book, I do think at the end there are two characters who seem to be set up as potentially both being love interests for Arthie in the next book. In contrast I was 100% here for every interaction between Jin and Flick and I do honestly think the book would have read much better if they were the only characters displaying romantic feelings, at least in this installment. Part of that is because Jin and Flick are shown to have a history that Arthie simply did not have with the characters set up to be her partner. I would have needed more time and slower development to even start to believe in Arthie's romance.

Read 8/13-8/16

Four Stars

Read 7/20-7/20

Five Stars

It's very important to take the authors warning about the books potential triggers seriously because they happen quite early in the book. The main character is sexually assaulted in chapter 2 and it is graphic. He then attempts suicide for the first time in chapter 3 and for a second time at the end of chapter 9 into chapter 10. The second attempt is from another characters point of view so while it is still shocking and upsetting it didn't read as raw to me as the first attempt did but your reading may differ. Throughout the book the sexual assault is referenced as well as the suicide attempts and suicide ideation. There is also a significant animal death in chapter 14.

I really fell into this story. I immediately connected with Velasin and felt his emotions so deeply. There are so many lines from him that just really hit me and I wanted to write down and save for later. I've been thinking more and more lately about annotating books and this is definitely one, on reflection, that I wish I had made the attempt at least. I love a smart character and one who just knows how to play the political game and once Velasin arrives in Qi-Katai we really got to see him come alive in this way. Caethari read like a himbo and you know, I'm not mad about it. Just let the man follow his smart husband around and do his best to protect him. The side characters are equally great I really enjoyed Velasin's best friend Markel, who uses others prejudices against his mutism to spy for Velasin. Caethari's ex-lover and friend, Liran, was another standout. He was a scene stealer in all the scenes that he was in and I enjoyed the energy he brought to the book.

I also found that I really enjoyed the world this is set in. The book is primarily set in the country of Khyte, particularly the city, Qi-Katai, where Caethari's family acts as the lords of the town. I loved the acceptance of Khyte for both gender and sexual identity. There are third gender characters, trans characters, gay characters, lesbian characters, the list goes on. Their inheritance laws were also so interesting to me. One character discusses them fairly early in the book but I loved how it wasn't the basic eldest child gets everything. Also, as the book is about Velasin and Caethari's marriage there were some fun wedding traditions that made for great scenes. Particularly a certain ceremony that is had to welcome the new partnership into the community.