Format: eARC

Blog Tour Review: Temple of Swoon

Posted January 6, 2025 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

When I first saw RAIDERS OF THE LOST HEART, it immediately became one of my most anticipated books of the year. There’s something about a romance with a super unique, adventure-filled premise that intrigues me. I enjoyed the general concept of SOMETHING WILDER by Christina Lauren for example – yes that one got a little far-fetched at times but this kind of ~adventure~ story mixed with rom-com elements has me written all over it for some reason. I ended up enjoying RAIDERS quite a bit, and seeing TEMPLE OF SWOON announced soonafter was a dream come true. Another rom-com with archeologists and Indiana Jones vibes? Yes, keep them coming, Jo Segura! TEMPLE OF SWOON follows Miri (mentee of the MC from the first book) and Rafael (a journalist with an overbearing father who forced him on this mission even though he tried to quit). Miri is looking for the lost City of the Moon and leading her first expedition without any help. Rafael’s mother and her ancestors had been protecting the lost city for years; his real reason for being there is to sabotage the mission on her behalf (and his father’s) to ensure its legacy remains intact. He didn’t expect to start falling for Miri and her tenacity though! This book was even better than Segura’s debut – the same Indiana Jones adventure vibes were prevalent without being too unrealistic. The romance was excellent. Yes, the two had a little bit of instalove, but I enjoyed it a lot. […]

Recent Reads | The Examiner and The Unwedding

Posted October 3, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

Janice Hallett has very quickly become an auto-buy author for me. I’m now officially caught up on all her books (sad!) because I completed her backlist before diving into her new release, THE EXAMINER. Hallett always writes in mixed media or epistolary format so you spend a lot of the initial pages wondering where all of these emails or texts or audio notes will take you. THE EXAMINER is much of the same, except for a little bit longer… It takes a while to figure out what the mystery actually is. The premise is a bunch of students are taking a Masters course in art at a college and something goes haywire, or someone goes missing, or someone dies. You don’t really know right away as the messages are just the students getting to know each other and eventually having disagreements. The story evolves into a lot of wild revelations. I’ve always thought some of Hallett’s premises are a bit far-fetched (primarily the TWYFORD CODE in some ways as well as ALPERTON ANGELS). That hasn’t affected my enjoyment of these books though, as one of them was five stars. I will admit that the EXAMINER was a bit too wild for me. It didn’t feel realistic that all of this would actually happen. I’m not saying all of my books need to be super realistic (ex: I read cozy mysteries or books like FINLAY DONOVAN where the amateur sleuth figures complex mysteries out) but with each reveal and twist, I […]

Recent Reads | Death at Morning House and Just Playing House

Posted August 28, 2024 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

Much like the INHERITANCE GAMES series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Maureen Johnson’s TRULY DEVIOUS books are some of my favorite ones to read – I can’t explain why or how these series are so cozy to me but the writing style, unique character voices, and fun mysteries have a lot to do with it. I’ve said over and over again that Johnson could write a hundred TRULY DEVIOUS books starring Stevie Bell and I would read them like they’re Nancy Drew mysteries. There’s something indescribable about her writing style that will keep me coming back over and over again, even as I stray away from young adult fiction. When I heard (during her last book’s tour stop at RJ Julia) that she was pausing the TD series to bring a new standalone mystery set on a creepy island, I was still pretty excited. This book ended up having very similar vibes to TD but with juuuust a bit less magic for me. I think the story could have honestly fit into the series and starred Stevie – that’s how similar it felt at times. Truthfully, I think that I missed Stevie and that’s the main reason I wish it was a TD book; this main character was kind of annoying. Marlowe is very stuck on the girl she left behind in her hometown when she leaves for the summer so it’s hard to get invested in any other romance potentials on the island or even if we SHOULD ship her with […]

Recent Reads | The Grandest Game and A Novel Love Story

Posted August 19, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 2 Comments

Jennifer Lynn Barnes is one of my auto-buy authors and really has been since 2015 with her criminally underrated THE FIXER series. It’s been banger after banger. This book was pretty much no exception to that! THE INHERITANCE GAMES series is the one that has stuck with me the most out of all of her books and series, I’d say… I love that she keeps adding to the world! The previous installment was a bit of a bridge book between the original series (with Avery as the main character), featuring some of the Hawthorne brothers. It definitely felt like a bridge and was a little hard to get into, so I was hopeful this “fresh start” series would be better. It certainly was! Avery, with her billions of dollars, developed an annual game to give away her money in the spirit of the way SHE got it… games and tricks and riddles and puzzles. This story is the second annual game and brings the POVs of characters like Rohan, Lyla, and Gigi to the table (along with other players in the game like Knox, Brady, and Odette). I’ll admit this did take me a while to get into, much like the previous book, but I think it’s because it’s a new story and I was on the fence about the characters. Once I got into it though… it was hard to put down! That’s what I count on JLA for. The story itself was fun and chockfull of different puzzles […]

Recent Reads | The Chamber and The Love of My Afterlife

Posted August 8, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

Omg lol. I was hoping to finish this in July since apparently it was my worst reading month (ratings-wise) and it would have been nice to keep the bad vibes out of August… but I kept falling asleep on the last day of July when trying to finish this book! THE LAST ONE was one of my favorite thrillers last year. I know a ton of people had mixed ratings based on the infuriating ending but I kinda loved it. The book was so addicting; nothing could stop me from turning pages. I was so excited to see how his style would translate to this book and I have very few words to describe how disappointed I was. This book was as boring as his previous book was enthralling/addicting. I could literally sum up this entire plot in three sentences (which I immediately did for my husband). The same thing happens over and over for 80% of the book, no exaggeration. The divers tell stories from their time in the military or about their diving careers for more than 3/4 of the book while people die off. There is no suspense or intrigue, just repetitive events and conversations I did not care about. It was not claustrophobic or creepy like I was promised; I could barely picture what it looked like despite diagrams and a glossary! I don’t know what didn’t click for me but I basically pictured a small bunk area with a table. I know it was small […]

Recent Reads | The Unmaking of June Farrow and The Finder’s Keepers Library

Posted July 22, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

This book intrigued me from the start but I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect. It doesn’t help that almost everyone gave it five-stars! I was truly expecting to be blown away lol. I think my expectations got the best of me and I really expected MORE from the elements that I knew the book contained: time travel, mystery spanning generations, romance, and general magical realism. I don’t know how to even review this, especially after sitting with it for a few days. The story follows June Farrow, the last in line of the Farrow women, after her grandmother passes away. They all have some kind of “illness” that makes them hallucinate doors and other things. June begins to investigate what’s happening to hear and steps through a door that appears. Cue the time travel science that was hard to follow but I just ignored it while pretending I understood. I realized that there’s a good chance literary mysteries are not for me – it made the book only somewhat intriguing and also quite boring, pulling the weaker elements from both genres together. I wanted more twists and intensity like I’d get in a mystery while also seeing some strong character development and romance. All of the elements of this story felt surface-level. I heard people describe this as a fever dream and discuss how much they loved the characters and didn’t want to leave them behind, which totally baffled me. I felt zero connection to any of the characters […]

Recent Reads | The Midnight Feast and The Ballad of Darcy and Russell

Posted July 8, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I am a Lucy Foley fangirl and kind of think she can do no wrong. I even loved THE PARIS APARTMENT and would tell you if you didn’t, this one may bring you back to her. For some reason this was yet another highly anticipated book that took me forever to get into but really paid off by the end. Like her other books, I totally could have read it in one sitting if I tried. The book centers around multiple POVs and I thought all of them were super interesting (and relevant by the end). As the synopsis states, we follow the founder, the husband, the mystery guest, the kitchen help… and then a couple more I won’t spoil just in case. Foley does such a good job with the initial slow drip of information through each person and timeline that makes you curious to learn what happened, and then the multiple twists toward the end bringing everything home. I was convinced I wouldn’t love this one compared to her others but there were a LOT of good twists. The little horror-esque elements didn’t turn me off like I expected, and I really loved how all of that ended up. The Birds and local lore were fascinating elements and I can now see how the info she shared during her book signing connects to everything. She was inspired by similar events (non-local people buying up land and making posh getaways in the farm-y countryside to piss off locals) but […]

ARC Review: One Last Summer

Posted June 10, 2024 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I absolutely loved Kate Spencer’s first book and was soooo excited to read her sophomore novel, especially when I read the synopsis. I love a friend group coming back together and anything relating to summer camp! I actually had started this back in April and was really loving the first handful of chapters. I put it aside when I got home from Disney to read another highly anticipated release and picked it back up in early May. I was never motivated to read it unfortunately, even though I generally liked it when I did make myself start reading. Honestly it put me in a bit of a slump throughout the month but I’m glad I ended up finishing it. Clara has missed the past few camp reunions at Pine Lake because of her busy job and life in the city. This year, however, her boss just requested in front of the whole company that she is suffering from burnout and needs a micro-sabbatical. There’s a huge pitch at work the following week that she needs to prep for so it couldn’t come at a worse time, but she IS ready to see her friends again. The crew consists of Sam, Nick, Trey, Eloise (and her new boyfriend Linus), and (of course – her summer crush that still works at the camp) Mack. I guess I was kind of expecting HAPPY PLACE vibes here with the group of friends but it missed the mark a lot of the time. I liked […]

Recent Reads | The Other Lola and Just for the Summer

Posted March 21, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I didn’t love Ripley Jones’ debut for a variety of reasons (the number one is that I fully predicted the mystery/whodunnit and thought it was absurdly predictable). For some reason, I told myself I’d give their second book a shot. I ended up liking THE OTHER LOLA more, so I’m glad I did. This story centers around another missing girl from the same town as the first book. I didn’t fully realize this was a companion novel but it follows Cam and Blair, the podcasters from MISSING CLARISSA. They are approached by a younger girl at their school whose sister went missing five years ago and suddenly returned. The catch? She thinks this Lola is an impostor. Her family doesn’t believe her so she enlists the help of Cam and Blair to figure out what’s actually going on. I thought the mystery here was quite interesting but took a little while to get going. Cam and Blair are going through their own stuff, which takes up a lot of the plot. If I really think about the progression of the mystery and investigation, it honestly didn’t get as much page time. I liked the found family vibes of this one with Cam’s mom’s new boyfriend and Mattie joining in their little crew a bit. Those were wholesome chapters. This book has a ton of political references and discussions. I don’t want to get into it in depth here but I am a very liberal person, so I agree with many […]

ARC Reviews: Listen for the Lie and The Heiress

Posted February 28, 2024 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

This book was exactly what I needed! I’d been slogging through HOFAS the entire month of February and kept telling myself I should just pick up a mystery/thriller and break my slump. I don’t know why I kept delaying but once I finally did it, I knew it was the right choice. LISTEN FOR THE LIE was an incredibly engaging story that I never wanted to put down. I’m sure it’ll end up on some of my best-of lists this year. Lucy’s best friend was found murdered… and then Lucy was found wandering around with her friend’s blood all over her. The town made assumptions while Lucy couldn’t remember anything from that day/night. When she finally returns to town around the same time a new true crime podcast releases about the case, she ends up working with the podcaster to try to figure out what happened… even if that means she learns she’s the guilty one. As usual, I loved the mixed media elements of this story. I don’t care what anyone says… I love a true crime podcast plotline still! There were a lot of interesting characters and connections that you learn throughout. I didn’t see the ending coming but I wouldn’t be surprised if other readers were able to. The main character was super funny and sarcastic; she wasn’t always likeable but she was very entertaining, which helps! I liked that Lucy made mistakes a lot because she felt real but she definitely could frustrate some readers. I […]