Crime and Poetry by Amanda Flower
I discovered Amanda flower a little over a year ago, and I love these books. This is the first one in a new to me, series, The Magical Book Shop. They are fluff for sure, but they always keep me reading, it’s never too obvious who did it, and the characters are fun.
The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling
I don’t typically like romance unless it’s got some other genre along to help build story and character; just the relationship parts gets kind of one note. I picked up The Ex Hex and it’s got enough magic going wrong that it works with the relationship. What I don’t quite get is why/how putting a Welsh magic town in the North Georgia mountains is even slightly believable. I know this is both romance and magic, so it’s not exactly realism forward, btu that’s going too […]
Every Gift a Curse (2023) by Caroline O'Donoghue
“I can feel our bravery fall away as we journey into the wood. We are not built for this. We are not the folksy teenagers you see in adventure stories. There is no one who’s a dab hand at archery, or who can chart our journey by looking at the last few visible stars.” (371-372) Every Gift a Curse is the third and final in Irish author Caroline O’Donoghue’s YA ‘Gifts’ trilogy, following All Our Hidden Gifts (2021) and The Gifts That Bind Us (2022). […]
Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
This is the second book in the Alex Stern series. This review will contain some spoilers for the first book in the series, Ninth House because I’m not sure how to review it without referencing things that happened in the last book. So if you’re new to this series, start there. Darlington is still missing, “in Spain” to those not in the know, and in Hell, possibly dead to those initiated in the secrets of Lethe House. Galaxy “Alex” Stern doesn’t have a lot of […]
The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik
CBR Passport Challenge: Books Recommended by Friends This is the second book in a trilogy. It doesn’t really make sense if you’ve not read the series from the beginning. So if you’re not caught up, go read A Deadly Education. It’s great, I’ll wait. El and Orion are now seniors in the Scholomance, and they have absolutely no way of knowing if their very dangerous mission just before graduation to fix the furnaces worked. Did they manage to clear the graduation hall of the majority […]
Magic Tides by Ilona Andrews
Plot summary of Magic Tides: Kate, Curran and their son, Conlan have left Atlanta, vowing to keep a low profile, and are settling into a new city and new house…but some things never change! Magical mayhem is about to erupt when Kate undertakes the rescue of a kidnapped youth, while Curran guards the homefront. It should be a simple retrieval, but with monsters on land and sea, Kate’s got her work cut out for her. Still, she’s never let her blade dull or her purpose […]
