Source: Purchased

Holiday Novella Reviews: Booked for Christmas and The Christmas Wish

Posted November 19, 2020 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

This novella is an adult romance by Sandhya Menon, using her pen name Lily Menon. The main character is an author of romance novels and has some friends over for a holiday party. A reviewer who trashes her books, Wolfe, shows up as a plus-one and she tries not to let it ruin her night. When a snowstorm rolls in and all the guests but Wolfe are able to leave, the two of them end up with a cozy and snowy holiday romance. I’m a sucker for hate-to-love so that was warmly welcomed by me! I always have issues with novellas where the pacing is off and things move too quickly, but this one actually felt just right – both in the overall story and with the romance. I wish there were more actual Christmas feels but the snow-covered remote cabin was a wonderful setting for this romance. It can be hard to capture THAT much Christmas in a small novella too. Overall though, this was a solid start to my holiday reading with a favorite author writing in a new age target. Another cozy and atmospheric small town romance companion series to start! My favorite. I love that this holiday novella is the first book in the Sunshine Valley series, set in the fictional town in Colorado. This story centers around the new town manager, Everett, who is struggling to get the city budget in place by the end of the year. He’s made some changes and fixed things […]

Review Round Up | Summer at Lake Haven, Today Tonight Tomorrow, and Then She Was Gone

Posted October 14, 2020 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I’m always thrilled to return to Haven Point! I started this one and then realized there was a prequel novella about the leading man’s sister that should be read first, so I paused and finished that up quickly. Ian is in town for his sister Gemma’s wedding. He rents a house next to Samantha and she’s immediately smitten with his two cute kids. The kids, in turn, are smitten with the puppies she’s temporarily taking care of! Ian and Samantha get off on the wrong foot but they grow to be friends (and then more) throughout the story, of course. I’ll be honest – they were super dry and boring. Their conversations were repetitive and offered too much information about Ian’s research on salmon (yup). I was always a bit tired of them talking, which isn’t what you need from main characters you’re supposed to be rooting for in a romance! As always, the charming Haven Point setting won major points for me. The two of them were on Lake Haven and went hiking to see some waterfalls, which led to some nice scenery descriptions. The rest of the town and the Helping Hands group were always excellent too. I won’t spoil the ending, but it was […]

Review Round Up | Good Girl Bad Blood, They Wish They Were Us, and The Inheritance Games

Posted September 10, 2020 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! After finishing A GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE TO MURDER, I knew that I had to read the sequel as soon as humanly possible. I haven’t read a lot of books during this lockdown period (combined with the new puppy period in my own life), so I want to capture that addicted-to-reading feeling as much as possible. GOOD GIRL, BAD BLOOD lived up to that for me, and allowed me to finish a nice, quick, entertaining story in a few sittings after ordering the UK edition from Book Depository. The second installment in the series follows Pip as she tries to find her friend’s missing brother. She’s reluctant to work on another case because the first one fucked her up so badly, but she feels the pull to help her friend Connor and his family. I can’t get too much into the reasons this book isn’t a full five-stars for me, but mild spoiler to follow: you definitely won’t see the ending coming. There’s literally no way to predict it and it kind of comes from left field. This was good and bad – in some ways it felt a little cheap? But in other ways it was incredibly clever and impressive, I think. This was JUST as addicting […]

Review Round Up | Aurora Burning, My Calamity Jane, and The Fell of Dark

Posted August 17, 2020 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I enjoyed AURORA RISING enough, but I found myself constantly comparing it to ILLUMINAE. I really loved that format and despite that “disconnected” style (messaging longs, transcripts, etc.), really fell hard for the characters. Unfortunately I continue to feel disconnected from the AURORA series. It just doesn’t resonate with me like I expected or like I keep hoping. I really enjoy the characters and LIKE them, but I’m just not as emotionally connected to anyone or what’s happening. This book had some great twists though – there were a few moments that surprised and intrigued me. Even though I enjoy the audiobooks and think they’re really well done, I think that they don’t help me feel connected. The twists felt smaller hearing them instead of reading them? I don’t know why! The ending of the book was a pretty wild cliffhanger and I still was like… hmm okay I guess I’ll read the next one. And I definitely will! I’m happy to continue reading this even though it’s not my favorite series. I really did enjoy this, despite the fact that it look me two full months to read. I don’t know the last time that happened lol. I’ll blame it on the length, obviously, and my […]

Review Round Up | The Deck of Omens, You Should See Me in a Crown, and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

Posted July 22, 2020 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 2 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I’ll be honest – I don’t have a lot to say with this one because I am the WORST and missed a lot of the book. I was rushing to finish in time for book club and listened to the audio during a work day while multitasking. I definitely understood the story and what was happening overall, but it was less impactful for me. I didn’t feel any kind of connection to the characters during this go-around. I think this was a satisfying and logical conclusion though! I enjoyed seeing where everyone ended up and how they ~fixed things~ in Four Paths. I think the main villain was a bit too obvious (not the actual motivation or anything but it was clear about a sketchy situation going on). I really loved the first book and honestly wish I took more dedicated time to sit down and physically read this conclusion. I think I would have fallen back into the world a bit better and focused on it more. I had super high hopes and expectations for this one because everyone around me online looooved it. It was super duper cute and I’m so glad we read it for book club in June! Liz decides to pursue the […]

Review Round Up | Ghosted, With Malice, and All the Stars and Teeth

Posted April 8, 2020 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I realized I forgot to review this one after finishing so here’s a quick review from what I remember – you know my bookish memory is garbage… Thanks Goodreads for holding my initial thoughts 😉 This book was a wild ride. It spent so much of the book thinking I had everything figured out and was really pissed that it was going to be that cliche and boring. I definitely ended up being wrong! It was almost the opposite of my prediction, without getting into spoilers. There were lots of twists and turns and suspense. The beginning of the book was just okay for me. I wasn’t overly interested in the chapters that had them getting to know each other and connecting when they first met. They were only together for about a week but fell in instalove pretty quickly. I got REALLY addicted to this one, though, while trying to figure out why he ghosted her. I was racing to finish this and see how everything wrapped up. Overall, this one took a little while for me to get into because I wasn’t overly invested in the couple in the early stages, but I absolutely couldn’t put it down once the story picked up, trying to […]

Review Round Up | The King of Crows, Starting Over at Blueberry Creek, and All Eyes on Us

Posted February 27, 2020 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! Spoilers for the previous books and tiny early-book spoilers for this book. HO BOY. I can’t believe this series is over! As sad as I am that I didn’t start way back when it first came out, I’m glad I had the experience of the Diviners Readalong to keep me going and break up these huge books. I did a little refresher before diving into the final installment though, since I read the third book back in November. I really liked how the beginning/middle of the book went, with all of the Diviners split up and trying to get to the same place. The groupings were wild and entertaining: Henry, Memphis, and Bill near the flooded Mississippi River and on trains; Theta, Evie, *someone*, and Isiah with the circus; and Ling and Jericho traveling with a band. It created some fun dynamics and new friendships/alliances among everyone while journeying across the country. The King of Crows, the Shadow Men, Roy, and Jake Marlowe fucked with them every step of the way. I don’t want to get into spoiler territory but let me say there were a few parts of this that totally broke my heart! I am truthfully really happy with how the book ended though and […]

Review Round Up | Supernova, American Royals, and One of Us is Next

Posted January 29, 2020 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! Like with the other two books in this series, I wish this was shorter by about 100 pages. There were some repetitive internal thoughts throughout and it just makes me think that more editing would have removed some and gotten this to a reasonable length. There’s no reason for this series to be the length it is! The pacing is super off. I think the first two books had a bit more twists throughout to keep things interesting but this one really didn’t get going until the final third. My favorite thing through reading all three books was watching Nova slowly think for herself and realize what was important. She started out as a such a villain on the side of the world’s biggest anarchist, and then realized that maybe she didn’t have to be that way. It genuinely took a while and was spaced nicely and naturally throughout the trilogy. Other than that, everyone was so boring. They were all about their powers and that’s about it. I couldn’t tell you anything about their personalities or interests otherwise. Just boring superheroes. Overall though, this book was a really good conclusion to the trilogy. Definitely wondering if a spinoff will happen based off the ending… I’ll always […]

#Faerieathon | Holly Black’s Queen of Nothing Release Day Event Recap and Book Review

Posted November 27, 2019 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Faerieathon Recap I’ve spent the last six months reading and rereading all of Holly Blacks novels set in or around the fae world, along with Kristin, Melanie, Jane, and Alexa. I’ve LOVED following along with everyone’s posts and watching their liveshows whenever possible. I was planning on doing reread reviews on the blog throughout the readalong but got a bit lazy. I did do reviews for the Modern Faerie Tales trilogy because YIKES and because some of them were first-time reads for me. To give a general recap on other things, I really enjoyed THE DARKEST PART OF THE FOREST again. It’s just so lush and atmospheric. I reread THE CRUEL PRINCE, skipped THE LOST SISTERS novella because I felt like I didn’t need it, and dove back into THE WICKED KING earlier this month. It was awesome to go back and reread the Folk of the Air books because they were even better the second time, understanding what was going to happen and anticipating all of the twists! Holly Black Event I was SO excited to see that Holly Black, true to her Massachusetts roots, was doing an event ON her release day at one of my favorite indie bookstores. An Unlikely Story is about an hour and a half away from me and is where my sister and I went to see Sarah Dessen over the summer. I decided I would leave work on Tuesday, head to the event, and take the following day off from work. I was […]

ARC Reviews: Mooncakes and The Bromance Book Club

Posted November 11, 2019 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

I had really high hopes going into MOONCAKES – it looked like a very cute, inclusive love story with a good amount of witchy magic and Halloween feels. I planned to read it ON Halloween but got sidetracked with finishing some other books for the end of the month, so I read it over the course of one night (the next day). I received an egalley for review but ended up purchasing the paperback after my review copy expired (whoops!). This graphic novel is about Nova, a hearing-impaired witch, who lives with her two grandmothers. Her parents passed away but do appear in the story. When a wolf is discovered in the nearby woods, Nova goes to investigate. It turns out to be her childhood friend, Tam, a non-binary werewolf. The two, along with the Nanas, work to remove a demon from their town. Lots of family feels and little touches of side-stories that I’d love to read more about. An old flame reignites between Nova and Tam and it’s THE CUTEST. I love childhood-BFFs-to-more storylines. I have to say, a higher rating could very well have happened here but I seriously struggle with rating graphic novels. I know that they’re just as good as reading a novel, obviously, but I personally rush through them. It’s like I have a timer in my head saying I NEED to finish a comic in one sitting, just because I know I can. I blaze through them and it results in lessened enjoyment. […]