Month: April 2025

Serena’s Review: “Inked in Ashes”

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Book: “Inked in Ashes” by Shannon Mayer

Publishing Info: Kindle edition, April 2025

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the author!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: I’ve spent twenty-five years in the Hollow, poor as dirt, cursed with a stepmother who hates me, and dreaming about a faraway land that I don’t understand. Only two things that make life worth living are my falcon, Fetch, and my best friend, Molly.

But when Moll’s plot to land a royal husband at the palace ball goes horribly wrong, I find myself staring at a king with a glass stiletto buried in his chest and a blood-covered Molly standing over him. We’ve got to move…and fast, or we’ll both wind up swinging from the hangman’s noose.

Worse? The palace sorcerer is using everything he can to find the culprit including raising the dead.

More complicated? Duncan…brother to the King, whose eye I’ve unintentionally caught, a man whose secrets might be deadlier than the undead soldiers breathing down our necks, is making me second-guess everything I’ve ever known. With revolution brewing and a mysterious man calling to me from my dreams, I have no choice but to embrace my fate…But what if my fate is beyond anything I could ever imagine? What if the only land I’ve ever known isn’t home at all?

What if I’m trapped inside a fairytale, and the only way out…is through?

Review: Any one who is familiar with my reviews will understand immediately why I was interested in checking this book out, based on the description above! Always love me some fairytale action! And this one had a super unique take, with essentially one fairytale set within another. The opening sequence which set up the book and this premise was fantastic, laying out high stakes, a great villain, and introducing some of the magic of this world. The story then shifts to the “inner story” and we pick up with our main character.

First of all, I really enjoyed Harmony. It was refreshing to follow a protagonist who not only is an adult but who is also looking at life through an adult’s viewpoint. Her early interactions with her friend Moll perfectly speak to that rather panicky stage that can happen in one’s twenties when you look around and realize life is going on, you’re aging, and you need to get your shit together. Of course, Harmony and Moll’s stakes are much higher than your average person in our world!

Again, no surprise for those who know my preferences, but I loved the heavy focus on the sister-like bond between Harmony and Moll. This relationship served as a healthy balance point to the romance. Too often in stories like this the love story seems to overwhelm every other aspect of a character’s personality. But by having Moll as such an important and crucial part of Harmony’s life, Harmony herself remains a fully realized character throughout.

I also really enjoyed all of the nods to fairytale tropes and plot points. Some are more subtle than others, but it was always fun running up against a new one! That said, for all of the the light-hearted moments, the author definitely didn’t shy away from the more awful aspects of fairytales as well. Right from the start, it’s clear that this is a violent, dangerous world, and that doesn’t let up throughout. The story itself follows a fairly predictable fantasy plot line, but the pacing was steady and quick, so I never found myself losing interest.

Overall, this was a fun, fast read. It fully took advantage of its fairytale setting and by the end I was excited to see where the story would go from here! Fans of fairytale fantasies should definitely give this one a shot!

Rating 8: Brimming with whimsy and romance, “Inked in Ashes” is fresh fairytale fantasy that is sure to please fans of the genre!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Inked in Ashes” isn’t on any Goodreads lists currently, but it should be on Twisted Fairytales.

Kate’s Review: “Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng”

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Book: “Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng” by Kylie Lee Baker

Publishing Info: MIRA, April 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner—but the bloody messes don’t bother her, not when she’s already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister being pushed in front of a train. The killer was never caught, and Cora is still haunted by his last words: “bat eater.”

These days nobody can reach Cora: not her aunt, who wants her to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival; not her weird colleagues; and especially not the slack-jawed shadow lurking around her door frame. After all, it can’t be real—can it? After a series of unexplained killings in Chinatown, Cora believes someone might be targeting East Asian women, and something might be targeting Cora herself.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

While I am still checking into the University of Minnesota’s wastewater analysis site weekly to see see what COVID is doing in my area, and still wear masks in crowded indoor places, I will say that we have come a long way in the five years since the pandemic started. We are now entering a point in media where the pandemic is serving as a backdrop, and in my periphery my most recent experience with this is the book “Bat Eater and Other Names For Cora Zeng” by Kylie Lee Baker. This was a new kind of Kylie Lee Baker for me, as I read her book “The Keeper of Night”, which is a YA dark fantasy. This book is a straight up adult horror novel. I didn’t know what to expect with her taking that on, but let me tell you, this book is FANTASTIC. A ghost story, a pandemic story, a story about the ugliness of white America, it has so many beats and notes that I just loved. And yes. It’s very, very scary.

The ghost story is what I will cover first, and it’s great. I have been very interested in Hungry Ghost mythology for awhile now, and Baker has our main character, Cora Zeng, haunted by a potential hungry ghost who may also be the ghost of her murdered sister Delilah, who was shoved in front of a subway in front of Cora. Cora doesn’t really believe in ghosts, but now there is a contorted and terrifying presence in her apartment that is following her wherever she goes, and messing with her mind, maybe. The descriptions of this ghost were SO terrifying I actually had to put the book down a couple of times, and Baker builds the dread up in ways that make the reader know that something is going to break, it’s only a matter of when. And when it does? MAN, it is SO scary and SO good.

But now I want to talk about the more realistic horrors of this novel, as to me so many horror novels really shine when they take on the real world scares. And in this book it is a combination of the terrifying unknowing of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the disgusting and violent racism hurled towards Asian Americans, particularly women, during this time and beyond. Cora works as a crime scene cleaner, and she and her coworkers (who are also of Asian heritage) have noticed a scary pattern of Asian American women being brutally murdered and having bats left at the crime scene. Not unlike when Cora’s sister Delilah was murdered by being shoved in front of a subway train by a white man, after being called ‘Bat Eater’. Baker has built up a disturbing serial killer story, but she pulls the rug out from beneath it in ways that felt all the more upsetting while also feeling tragically realistic, and perfectly captures the fear and anxiety that so many women like Cora were feeling as violence was being directed at them during this time period and beyond. And not just violence, but also the little cuts of racism that BIPOC deal with in everyday life, like Cora going to Church with her white Aunt who doesn’t realize that Cora feels VERY unwelcome, and refuses to understand why that may be. It’s enraging and heartbreaking all at once and it boosts the narrative impact.

And she also perfectly captures the tension and fear of the early days of lockdowns during the early days of the pandemic. Cora is VERY scared of contracting COVID, as this is pre-vaccine access AND set in New York City in 2020. You know, the place that had bodies spilling into streets from refrigerator trucks and constant siren wails throughout the Burroughs (my sister and her wife lived this, living in Brooklyn in a small apartment, only leaving to do laundry or go grocery shopping). It’s such a close memory at this point, and Baker nailed it. I was actually shuddering to myself as Cora would start to have an anxiety attack while in public over the fear of contagion, because I was once in that same place, where I would hyperfocus and fret about getting sick just from grocery shopping, even when wearing my mask.

“Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng” is a phenomenal horror story about the things that haunt a person, be it trauma, racism, or actual ghosts. I highly recommend it.

Rating 9: A terrifying ghost story but also a deeply disturbing exploration of racism during the early days of the COVID 19 pandemic, “Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng” is an effective and searing horror novel.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng” is included on the Goodreads lists “Weird Girl Lit”, and “Diverse Releases of 2025 – Mystery, Thriller, Horror”.

Not Just Books: April 2025

While we do love us some books, believe it not, we do have a life outside of reading. So to highlight our other pop culture interests, on the last Monday of each month, we each will highlight three other “happenings” from the last month. Big events on favorite TV shows, new movies we’ve watched, old movies we’ve “discovered,” etc. Pretty much whatever we found of particular interest outside of the book world during the last month. Share your own favorite things in the comments!

Serena’s Picks

Video Game: “Split Fiction”

It’s really tough to find a good couch co-op game these days. What used to be a staple of social gaming has now been almost completely consumed by a world where instead of hanging with friends you spend most of your time in a massive online world being ruthlessly hunted and killed by gangs of roaming middle graders. At least that’s been my experience. But a few years ago, my husband and I played “A Way Out,” a couch co-op game where you escape a prison. It was great fun, so I was even more stoked when I heard the same company was releasing another similar game! But this time it followed two writers, one who writes science fiction and the other fantasy. And then the game involves traversing these various fictional worlds. Could a game BE more up my alley? I think not! And this one has easily lived up to my wildest dreams! It’s bizarre, beautiful, and, best of all, endlessly clever in its way of forcing the players to work together to solve puzzles and defeat enemies. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, bam! Time for another twist! I highly recommend this one, especially if you have someone you can game with at home!

Sports: MN United

My husband and Kate’s husband have had season tickets to the Loons since before, well, they were even the Loons, though, we’ve definitely all used them less since we collectively introduced 3 kids into the scene! That being the case, said children are now finally getting old enough that bringing them to sporting events can be an actual good time, rather than just another form of stress and questioning life choices. The weather was nice, the soft pretzels were enormous, and fun was had all around. Yes, the Loons lost 3 to 1, but hey, you can’t have it all!

Movie: “Beauty and the Beast”

I want to start up a family re-watch of all the Disney movies with my kids, starting from the earliest and then working our way forwards. In the meantime, however, our choices have been very sporadic. But this month when debating we finally landed on “Beauty and the Beast.” I feel like it’s almost a requirement of the job that a librarian love this movie best of all the Disney fair. But, on the other hand, it’s also just that good! As I’ve been reading a lot of romantasy recently, I also recognized the early bones of many of my love story preferences in this re-watch! Always great to have an excuse to revisit classics like this!

Kate’s Picks

Album: “Mayhem” by Lady Gaga

I have been a fan of Lady Gaga since New Years Eve 2009, when I was at a house party with some friends and we were listening to “The Fame” and “The Fame Monster” and dancing about. Now I’ve passed that love onto my five year old, and we were both totally amped when her new album “Mayhem” dropped. Her because she was immediately obsessed with “Disease”, me because it feels like such a throwback to old school witchy demony weirdo Gaga. “Abracadabra” is an obvious winner (the music video is INSAAAAANE and hey, it was the finale lip sync for the crown in this season’s “Drag Race”), but I think that my favorite is “How Bad Do U Want Me”, because it kind of sounds like old school Madonna meets Cyndi Lauper but also somehow a synth-pop Taylor Swift? All I know is that I told David that it was the kind of song I’d have on a loop were I still writing fan fiction romance scenes. HONESTLY THE WHOLE ALBUM HAS SO MANY GREAT INFLUENCE IN ITS SOUND! Like Prince, and David Bowie. I love it. Welcome back Recession Era Gaga, we needed you!

Netflix Show: “You”

We have reached the end of an era. The show “You”, based on one of my favorite series written by Caroline Kepnes, has dropped its final season! Joe Goldberg’s final dance, and perhaps his comeuppance, has arrived, and he’s back in New York and still a complete psychopath. And still incredibly entertaining. After his ludicrous shenanigans in London, he and Kate are now living in NYC, as she tries to turn her nefarious father’s business empire around, and he tries to keep his darker impulses in check. But Joe is Joe, and when he isn’t being completely enraged by the ill behaved upper class (notably Kate’s jealous half sister Reagan, played by a venomous Anna Camp), he’s obsessing over yet another complicated fantasy girl, this one named Bronte. Penn Badgley is still killing it as Joe, and we also get some fun performances from the aforementioned Camp, who is actually doing double duty as both Reagan and her twin sister Maddie, who are very different from each other in some ways. Goodbye, “You”. At least we still have the books.

Film: “Sinners”

I love a well done vampire movie, and when I first saw a trailer for Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” I knew, KNEW that I needed to see it. Because not only did it seem like it was going to be a wild vampire ride, it was also taking place within the Jim Crow Era South, with a predominantly Black cast led by Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers having to fight off bloodsuckers in a juke joint. My mind immediately went to “From Dusk Til Dawn”, but probably a bit more complex. In the 1930s in the Mississippi Delta, twins Smoke and Stack are returning home from a stint working as heavies for the Mob in Chicago, with a dream to open up a juke joint for the people in their share cropping community. They recruit friends and family to help them run the place, but on opening night their business is infiltrated by white vampires who want to be part of the fun. This movie blew me away. It’s creepy, it’s funny, it’s emotional, it’s deeply political, and it has a FANTASTIC soundtrack and a STELLAR cast. The vampire renaissance in horror media continues, and “Sinners” is possibly the best one we’ve seen.

Serena’s Review: “The Ashfire King”

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Book: “The Ashfire King” by Chelsea Abdullah

Publishing Info: Orbit, April 2025

Where Did I Get this Book: Netgalley!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: A merchant and a prince trapped in the crumbling realm of jinn must figure out how to save one world to return to their own in The Ashfire King, the second book in the Sandsea Trilogy.

Neither here nor there, but long ago… After fleeing a patricidal prince, legendary merchant Loulie al-Nazari and banished prince Mazen bin Malik find themselves in the realm of jinn. But instead of sanctuary, they find a world on the cusp of collapse.

The jinn cities, long sheltered beneath the Sandsea by the magic of its kings, are sinking. Amid the turmoil, political alliances are forming, and rebellion is on the rise. When Loulie assists a dissenter—one of her bodyguard’s old comrades—she puts herself in the center of a centuries-old war.

Trapped in a world that isn’t her own and wielding magic that belongs to a fallen king, Loulie must decide: Will she carry on someone else’s legacy or carve out her own?

Previously Reviewed: “The Stardust Thief”

Review: Insert “It’s been 84 years” gif here! But seriously, that’s how long it’s felt since I read and reviewed “The Stardust Thief!” So long that I’ve run into the author of this book not once, but twice, at ALA conventions! So I’ve been super excited ever since I saw that we finally had a publication date for this one!

Wisely, the author included a fairly extensive opening chapter covering all of the action from the first book. I really liked that book, but I’ll admit, I’d forgotten many of the details that were then covered in this introduction. Even with it, I was left a bit floundering when the actual story started up, trying to re-orient myself with not only where our characters were located, but how exactly they’d all ended up where they did. Once I got my footing more under me, I was able to settle in better.

Overall, I think this was a solid second book. It didn’t quite reach the highs of the first one, but it did a good job of reminding me why I enjoyed this world to begin with. Loulie and Mazen remain great characters to follow, though my preference for Loulie continues. Mazen is fine, but it didn’t feel like he had much of an arc to explore in this book, which left his chapters often feeling a bit light or hollow. For her part, Loulie is still reeling from the loss of Quadir, as well as with the new paths she sees for herself going forward. Further, with the loss of this essential relationship, we see her struggle to trust and grow close with Mazen. The barest hints of romance are established here, and I’m definitely excited to see how that is wrapped up in the last book!

Speaking of Quadir, I was disappointed to see him disappear for so much of this book. I get why it was necessary for the plot, but he was a nice balance to the other characters, and I think his loss does effect the overall quality of this book. Especially given the blandness of Mazen’s chapters.

I enjoyed the main plot, for the most part. Though I will say that by the time we get to the end of this book, looking back on the events that took place, much of it felt like side quests, rather than an advancement of the primary story. This book definitely struggled with “second book syndrome,” and I wonder if the story as a whole would have been better served as a duology? There’s always a push for fantasy series to be bigger, longer, and then assumed, better. But sometimes a story works better when it’s tighter, and that might be the case here. Of course, we won’t really know until the third book is out and we see how it all is tied up in the end.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read. It didn’t quite live up to the highs of the first book, and I’ll admit to being a bit let down, given the long wait for this one. But it’s also a solid read on its own and sets up some exciting events for the third book. Ultimately, this may be one of those rare books that will read better if you haven’t already read the first one and can instead now read them back to back. The floundering around that I felt at the beginning is definitely best avoided!

Rating 8: A fun return in a long-awaited sequel! This may have suffered a bit from “second book syndrome,” but it was still great to return to this world and these characters!

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Ashfire King” can be found on this Goodreads list: Arabian, Egyptian, and Indian Fantasy.

Kate’s Review: “The Staircase in the Woods”

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Book: “The Staircase in the Woods” by Chuck Wendig

Publishing Info: Del Rey, April 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods in this mesmerizing horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.

Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what.

Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something a mysterious staircase to nowhere.

One friend walks up—and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears.

Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods. . . .

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

Chuck Wendig has cemented himself as a must read horror author for me, as his books always keep me on the edge of my seat while also sending me on an emotional rollercoaster. Because of this, whenever he has a new book I am always immediately going to seek it out. His newest novel “The Staircase in the Woods” was no exception, and given the premise involves a super unnerving urban legend that has fascinated me for years, I was eager to get my hands on it and see what Wendig would do. Once again, it did not disappoint.

I really enjoyed the foundation of the horror of the story: a mysterious staircase to seemingly nowhere in the middle of the woods. This urban legend has always fascinated me, and I remember reading threads on this on Reddit years ago, so when I saw that Wendig was taking it on for his new book I was eager to see what he would do with it. There is a lot of wiggle room with this baseline concept, as the staircases in most of the urban legends aren’t ever really explained outside of the uncanny (at least in the experiences that I have with this kind of plot), so Wendig could pretty much do anything. And what he DOES do is so unnerving and unsettling and creepy and unique. I don’t want to spoil much because going in without any hints makes it all the more impactful, and WOW does it have its moments of nightmare fuel. And mind bending weirdness.

But, and it comes as no surprise to me because this is usually the case, it’s the very human aspects of this story that elevated it to the levels it rose to. Especially in regards to the complicated friendships between high school friends who grew apart due to time, distance, and a shared trauma that none of them have reckoned with. As someone who keeps up with only three high school friends decades later, the way that Wendig captures the relationships between Owen, Lore, Hamish, and Nick (as well as the now missing Matty) with such bittersweetness, nostalgia, and heartache had a serious emotional impact. I remember those friendships from my teenage years when we were all trying to discover ourselves, and the highs and the lows and how back then we thought we’d never change… only to fall away from each other. Granted, my friend group drifted due to very common reasons, not because one of our friends disappeared at the top of an impossible staircase in the woods, but the melancholy and grief and difficulties of the severed friendships and the tricky reunion felt very, very real. Wendig really just knows how to portray the complexities of human nature and human relationships, and brings it out in the midst of the scary stuff that is at the forefront of this novel.

“The Staircase in the Woods” is another winner of a horror novel from Chuck Wendig. If you still haven’t checked this guy out, what are you waiting for?

Rating 8: Deeply creepy and in many ways emotional and bittersweet, “The Staircase in the Woods” is another winner from Chuck Wendig!

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Staircase in the Woods” is included on the Goodreads list “Horror to Look Forward to in 2025”.

Serena’s Review: “The Never List”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “The Never List” by Jade Presley

Publishing Info: Red Tower Books, April 2025

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from publicist!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Threatened by invaders, the kingdom of Lumathyst is on the verge of chaos, and no one can stop it. Unless the four immortal god-princes find their fated mate―and safeguard the throne―Lumathyst will fall.

Five women have tried. Five have failed. And tonight in the royal city, the princes need to find their Chosen and hope she can survive the transformation that will make her immortal.

Only Rylee Gray wasn’t supposed to be here. She snuck in for her own dark reasons―and now they claim they’ve found their perfect match. Her. Of course, they have no idea she’s concealing a secret big enough to damn them all.

The four princes have no choice. They’ll use every delectably wicked skill they have to make Rylee fall for all of them…or watch their kingdom collapse.

Review: So, I’ll be honest, I’m not really a fan of “Why Choose” romances. I usually struggle with them both on a personal preference side of things (I’m a monogamy gal myself) and on a practical level (I think it’s very difficult to write a number of romantic interests who all are equally developed and interesting). But I never want to write off a trope altogether. Love triangles are also not my thing, but I can think of a handful of books that used this trope that I very much enjoyed! So all of that to say, I was happy to check out this book when I was offered an ARC for review! Hope lives eternal!

I’m going to try to review this both from my own subjective take and from a more objective angle, as, again, those who love “why choose” romances are going to have a totally different experience of that aspect of this book than I did. So to start with the obvious positives, this book was incredibly fast moving! Things get started right away and never really let up! Probably not surprising when you have the primary plot to get through, plus the introduction of an entire cast of characters, all who need to be developed enough to serve as romantic interests! While I think the balance was off between the spice and the plot, I will say that what we do get of the trials was interesting and fun to follow.

Our main character, Rylee, was also easy to root for throughout. Between these flare-ups of fun action scenes and the fast moving pace, at the best points in my reading experience, this book reminded me of my experiences reading Armentrout’s books: that is, they’re fun in that “kind of stupid, turn your brain off” sort of way. But still fun!

However, as I mentioned above, this book definitely struggles finding the correct balance between the smut scenes and the plot itself. There were often large jumps in time between scenes, and between that the rather thin descriptions that make up the actual plot elements themselves, it sometimes felt like we were just jumping from one spicy scene to the next. Nothing wrong with some spice, but I never want to pick up a book and feel like that makes up over 50% of the book, and this one felt over that even at times!

I also struggled with the type of tropes used here. I went on a bit of a rant about mix and matching romance tropes and where that can go wrong in another review recently. And I think here we see another example of that. On one hand, you have the “why choose” trope where the FMC ends up in a relationship with numerous love interests. And on the other hand, you have “fated mates,” which is, by definition, tied up in exclusivity and the rarity of the connection between one individual and another. Trying to mix the two waters down the appeal of both, in my opinion. Not to mention, I just don’t think the core fans of either of these tropes are also often huge fans of the other! Like I said, there’s an inherent contradiction between these tropes’ approach to romance, one that would like carry over to readers’ preferences. All of this to say, I’m not sure this book really pulled this off either. The fated mates trope, especially, felt like it was missing the mark of what readers may expect from that sort of romance.

Overall, this was an ok read. I don’t think I’m the primary audience for this one, so I can’t speak to strongly for how fans of “why choose” romances will react. I suspect well! The book is a fast, fun read, so if you’re on board for the tropes at its heart, you’ll probably like it. That said, there’s a pretty stark imbalance between the plot and the spice, so readers should go in aware of that fact.

Rating 7: “Why choose” romance readers will likely really enjoy this! I’m not sure it will speak to “fated mates” fans in quite the same way.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Never List” can be found on this Goodreads list: April 2025 Most Anticipated Romance Releases.

Kate’s Review: “When The Wolf Comes Home”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “When The Wolf Comes Home” by Nat Cassidy

Publishing Info: Tor Nightfire, April 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: One night, Jess, a struggling actress, finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment. After a violent, bloody encounter with the boy’s father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives.

As they attempt to evade the boy’s increasingly desperate father, horrifying incidents of butchery follow them. At first, Jess thinks she understands what they’re up against, but she’s about to learn there’s more to these surreal and grisly events than she could’ve ever imagined.

And that when the wolf finally comes home, none will be spared.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this novel!

Every once in awhile I encounter an author that has some pretty solid and good hype around their work, and then when I try it out it doesn’t REALLY click with me. A lot of the time with a one off I am inclined to give said author another go, especially if the hype of future works continues. That’s been my experience with Nat Cassidy, as I didn’t really gel with his book “Mary”, but kept seeing others praise that book as well as his other works after the fact. When I saw that happening with “When The Wolf Comes Home”, I told myself that it was time to give it another go. I hoped that I would have a better result with this book. And it was…. kind of a similar experience as last time?

Firstly, however, there were a lot of things I did like about this book. For one, wow is this a gnarly and gory monster story, with some solid moments of suspense and some breakneck action. We follow Jess, an aspiring actress who has kind of found herself stalled out and working in a diner, who stumbles upon a mysterious young boy who is being chased by his father, who also happens to be taking the form of a monstrous killer wolf. So, at the jump, this starts like a really graphic and absolutely insane (I say this in a praising way) monster tale, with no holds barred monster horror with lots of nasty beats of gore and body horror. I can’t help but cackle a bit at the fact that at the start of the month I was saying how I hadn’t seen much werewolf horror in recent years, and then in April I had three books with werewolf-esque themes. Cassidy brings his usual uninhibited scares to the story, and man, it’s bloody and nasty. But what struck me more about this tale is that it also has a lot of deep and emotional explorations of trauma, grief, and complicated relationships with fathers. For the mysterious Boy it’s pretty clear, but as we get to know Jess we find out that her father abandoned her as a child and it’s something that she has had to deal with and process her entire life. We also get a really poignant author’s note from Cassidy after the ending detailing his inspirations for this story from his own life, and it added another layer to an already intense thematic that I really liked.

But, even with all of that great action and gnarly/poignant characterization, there were a couple things that didn’t quite land for me in this book. The first is that there is a HUGE swerve from what has been laid out as the main issue/plot point of this novel. I definitely thought that was I was getting was a werewolf story when I picked this book up. And, to be fair, there are certainly elements that would make this a werewolf story. But once it was revealed that there was, in fact, something else going on, I was taken aback, but wasn’t quite as enthralled as I had been because it felt so out of left field. It’s not BAD, don’t get me wrong, but it just felt like a huge deviation and it never quite stuck that landing nor recovered from it. On top of that, we had a moment early on that was alluded to as being significant (I don’t want to spoil anything so I’m going to be vague), then was kind of cast aside but still mentioned, and then once we came back to it it threw another grenade very close to the end that blew a huge chunk into the ending and story overall. And then how it wrapped up kind of confused me. This very well could just be a ‘me’ problem, though. But I was left with wanting more.

So another chance on Nat Cassidy had another mixed bag of results with “When The Wolf Comes Home”. The things that worked really really worked, but the things that didn’t were clunky.

Rating 6: I was into it for a good chunk, but then a swerve of a plot twist and a somewhat confusing ending kind of knocked it down a few points for me.

Reader’s Advisory:

“When the Wolf Comes Home” is included on the Goodreads list “Horror to Look Forward to in 2025”.

Another Take: Spring 2025

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Don’t just take it from us, other readers like these books, too! And we have decided that we would like to showcase other reviewers and bloggers that have their own thoughts and feelings about books that we have loved. Here are a few of the books we’ve enjoyed recently and what other bloggers have to say about them.

Book: “Upon a Starlit Tide” by Kell Woods

Book Description: Saint-Malo, Brittany, 1758.
For Lucinde Leon, the youngest daughter of one of Saint-Malo’s wealthiest ship-owners, the high walls of the city are more hindrance than haven. While her sisters are interested in securing advantageous marriages, Luce dreams of escaping her elegant but stifling home and joining a ship’s crew. Only Samuel—Luce’s best friend and an English smuggler—understands her longing for the sea, secretly teaching her to sail whenever she can sneak away. For Luce, the stolen time on the water with Samuel is precious.

One stormy morning, Luce’s plans are blown off course when she rescues Morgan de Chatelaine, the youngest son of the most powerful ship-owner in Saint-Malo, from the sea. Immediately drawn to his charm and sense of adventure, she longs to attend the glittering ball held in honor of his safe return and begins to contemplate a different kind of future for herself.

But it is not only Luce’s hopes at stake—the local fae are leaving Brittany and taking their magic with them, while the long-standing war with the English means Saint-Malo is always at risk of attack. As Luce is plunged into a world of magic, brutality, and seduction, secrets that have long been lost in the shadowy depths of the ocean begin to rise to the surface. The truth of her own power is growing brighter and brighter, shining like a sea-glass slipper.

Or the scales of a sea-maid’s tail.

Serena’s Review (9 Rating)

The BiblioSanctum (4 Stars)

Forever Lost in Literature (4 Stars)

Amanda’s Book Corner (5 Stars)

Book: “The Otherwhere Post” by Emily J. Taylor

Book Description: Seven years ago, Maeve Abenthy lost her world, her father, even her name. Desperate to escape the stain of her father’s crimes, she lives under a fake name, never staying in one place long enough to put down roots.

Then she receives a mysterious letter with four impossible words Your father was innocent.

To uncover the truth, she poses as an apprentice for the Otherwhere Post, where she’ll be trained in the art of scriptomancy—the dangerous magic that allows couriers to enchant letters and deliver them to other worlds. But looking into her father’s past draws more attention than she’d planned.

Her secretive, infuriatingly handsome mentor knows she’s lying about her identity, and time is running out to convince him to trust her. Worse, she begins to receive threatening letters, warning her to drop her investigation—or else. For Maeve to unravel the mystery of what happened seven years ago, she may have to forfeit her life.

Serena’s Review (9 Rating)

Mom with a Reading Problem (4 Stars)

Fantasy Books Obsessed (5 Stars)

The Reading Racoon (4 Stars)

Book: “The Raven Scholar” by Antonia Hodgson

Book Summary: Let us fly now to the empire of Orrun, where after twenty-four years of peace, Bersun the Brusque must end his reign. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders compete to replace him. They are exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists—the best of the best.

Then one of them is murdered.

It falls to Neema Kraa, the emperor’s brilliant, idiosyncratic High Scholar, to find the killer before the trials end. To do so, she must untangle a web of deadly secrets that stretches back generations, all while competing against six warriors with their own dark histories and fierce ambitions. Neema believes she is alone. But we are here to help; all she has to do is let us in.

If she succeeds, she will win the throne. If she fails, death awaits her. But we won’t let that happen.

We are the Raven, and we are magnificent.

Serena’s Review (10 Rating)

Realms of My Mind (5 Stars)

The Skiffy and Fanty Show

Every Book a Doorway (5 Stars)

Book: “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter” by Stephen Graham Jones

Book Description: A chilling historical horror novel set in the American west in 1912 following a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice.

A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.

Kate’s Review (9 Rating)

Books, Bones, & Buffy (4.5/5 Stars)

RA For All

Smitten for Fiction

Book: “Vanishing Daugthers” by Cynthia Pelayo

Book Description: A haunted woman stalked by a serial killer confronts the horrors of fairy tales and the nightmares of real life in a breathtaking novel of psychological suspense by a Bram Stoker Award–winning author.

It started the night journalist Briar Thorne’s mother died in their rambling old mansion on Chicago’s South Side.

The nightmares of a woman in white pleading to come home, music switched on in locked rooms, and the panicked fear of being swallowed by the dark…Bri has almost convinced herself that these stirrings of dread are simply manifestations of grief and not the beyond-world of ghostly impossibilities her mother believed in. And more tangible terrors still lurk outside the decaying Victorian greystone.

A serial killer has claimed the lives of fifty-one women in the Chicago area. When Bri starts researching the murders, she meets a stranger who tells her there’s more to her sleepless nights than bad dreams—they hold the key to putting ghosts to rest and stopping a killer. But the killer has caught on and is closing in, and if Bri doesn’t answer the call of the dead soon, she’ll be walking among them.

Kate’s Review (9 Rating)

Cantina Book Club

Book CLB

Once Upon a Book Blog

Book: “The Unworthy” by Agustina Bazterrica & Sarah Moses (Translator)

Book Description: The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.

Kate’s Review (8 Rating)

A Dusti Bookshelf (5 Stars)

Always With a Book

Serena’s Review: “Chaos”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Chaos” by Constance Fay

Publishing Info: Bramble, March 2025

Where Did I Get this Book: Netgalley!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: He’s a mind controlled killing machine, until her touch frees him

Engineer Caro Ogunyemi thinks she has everything in control. Sure, she has a dark secret in her past and aim so bad that she can’t shoot the side of a spaceship when she’s right in front of it, but those are minor details in the life of a space mercenary. When Caro embarks on a solo mission infiltrating a prison planet that is run by the deadly Pierce family, she embraces the opportunity to prove she’s a hero.

It’s there that Caro meets Leviathan, a super soldier with a chip in his head that turns him into a mindless killer. He’s drop dead gorgeous with an emphasis on drop dead, until she touches him and renders his chip inert. The danger begins when she lets him go.

In the heart of enemy territory, where love is at stake, life is treacherous and time is short, Caro and Leviathan must figure out how to recover his agency, protect her crew from Pierce’s sinister machinations, and stage a prison-break before Leviathan is lost to her―and himself―forever.

Previously Reviewed: “Calamity” and “Fiasco”

Review: I’ve been really enjoying this science fiction romance series! Not only is it a breath of fresh air to see a blending of romance and science fiction instead of always fantasy, but Constance Fay is one of those rare authors who seems to have an effortless handle on the important factors found in both genres and effortlessly blends them into enjoyable, stand-alone novels! That said, while I enjoyed this one as well, it has been my least favorite in the series overall.

But let’s start with the purely positive points! As I said, the science fiction elements in this series have always been great, and this one was no exception. We had A.I., we had a luxury space prison, we had cyborgs, we had new aliens! And, on top of it all, the main plot of this one wove in and out of the greater political machinations going on between the powerful families who run the galaxy and who increasingly seem to be on target for a massive conflict at some point.

Another unique science fiction element is an ability that Caro develops after being exposed to an alien bug whose bite/sting leaves her with the ability (disability?) to essentially shut down any sort of technology with only her touch. Not only is this an incredibly interesting concept and we see many variations on how it can be utilized throughout the book, but I enjoyed the way that this specifically impacted Caro, a character whose entire sense of self-worth is caught up in her technical prowess. It wasn’t explored as thoroughly as I would have liked, but I did enjoy the brief moments of reflection we got from this.

But this also speaks to one of my first stumbling blocks: Caro’s inner journey. The first two books in this series were successful, in my opinion, not only because the romances were excellent, but because the main character’s had incredible backstories and personal arcs that were explored throughout their story. Now, there is an attempt here to give Caro something similar. However, it just doesn’t hold up against the incredible stakes and backstories that came before. Caro’s entire inner journey revolves around an incident that was A.) entirely accidental and B.) one that she immediately tried to remedy. That being the case, there really isn’t a whole lot more to do with this backstory or much of a character arc to explore. This is so much the case that another character pretty much lays it out for her exactly as I have here! In the previous books, both main characters had some dark stuff in their pasts, things that were heavily reflected in the way they saw themselves and the choices they made. This lead to incredible journeys for them to explore. Unfortunately, Caro just didn’t really have that.

I also struggled with the romance in this one. It’s not bad, by any means, and what we did get, especially in the latter half of the book, I really enjoyed. However, the nature of the situation lead to what felt a lot like an instalove situation. Levi barely speaks for the first half of the book almost! And while I liked the idea behind this romance, as well as Levi himself, especially when he became more involved in the story, the actual love story itself felt very truncated.

This wasn’t helped by the inclusion of a second POV character, something we’ve never seen before. And, unfortunately, I think this inclusion worked against this story in a few ways. For one thing, by devoting even a handful of chapters to another character, the book lost much-needed page time that could have been spent on better pacing for the primary romance. For another thing, this is one of those weird situations where I enjoyed this secondary character so much (and the hints of a future romance!) that I almost began to want to spend more time with her than Caro! Definitely not something you want, though I am very excited for what I hope is the next book’s main couple!

The pacing was also a bit strange here. There was a ton of action, which I really enjoyed. But there was also a “Mad Max: Fury Road” situation towards the end where our group of characters spend a significant amount of time breaking out of the prison only to travel for a few days before, for plot reasons, needing to turn right around and break back IN to the prison!

Overall, there was still a lot of great action and romance in this book. It just didn’t quite live up to the highs of the previous two books. That said, I’m incredibly excited for the next book, if the other POV character we had here is going to be the lead! Fans of this series should still definitely check this one out, as it’s still a fun time all around, these quibbles aside.

Rating 7: While Caro’s backstory was a bit weaker than previous characters’ in the series, this was still a fun, romantic science fiction romp!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Chaos” is on this Goodreads list: All the New Horror, Romantasy, and Other SFF Crossover Books Arriving in March 2025

Serena’s Review: “Firebird”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Firebird” by Juliette Cross

Publishing Info: Bramble, April 2025

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: A conqueror captivated…
A witch prophesied to save them all…
A world where dragons rule Rome.

From the moment Roman general and nephew to the emperor Julianus Dakkia laid eyes on Malina, he was enthralled by the Dacian dancer. Years later, the fierce beauty stands before him on a scarred battlefield, her life in danger. He instinctively shifts into his fierce dragon form to save her, an action that may mean his head on the imperial gate. But he and his dragon know one thing: she belongs to them.

Malina can’t believe that the centurion who had once bestowed a secret talisman on her is the Roman general of legendary brutality. His warrior prowess cannot be denied, yet they don’t reveal the secret he hides. All Malina knows is his protection and gentle touch. And she cannot deny how her soul has always seemed to answer his.

As they navigate a world where flying deathriders conquer and burn, their love will ignite a firestorm that can only end in heartbreak or death. Or both.

Review: This is a difficult book to review. On one hand, it’s simply following a tried-and-true romantasy equation, almost point by point at times. On the other hand, within the greater context of the story, I think many of these tropes rubbed the wrong way for me. However, given how standard much of the language and tropes used in this book are to the genre, I fully expect my opinion of this one to be an outlier. Ah well. By this point, I’m well used to being on the wrong side of these dragon romance books. (But wait! I did like “Dragon Unleashed” by Grace Draven, so it’s not all bad all the time automatically or anything!)

As always, I do want to start with a few positives. For the most part, I did enjoy the setting of this book, being based on ancient Rome. I feel like this is a bit of a trend recently, and as I enjoy Roman history, it’s been fun seeing it pop up within the fantasy genre (largely because the history is so long and full of different highs and lows and focal points that you can end up with quite a lot of variety even with this focus).

That said, I don’t think this particular iteration did much with this concept. For example, this book was hyped as a combination of ancient Rome meets George R.R. Martin. Do you know what those two things have in common? A strong focus on political machinations! Do you know what this book had practically zero of? That’s right, political machinations. Anything you do see is so superficial as to be practically worthless. Instead, the comparison to Martin would more accurately come down to the book’s focus on the horrendous treatment of women in this civilization. Obviously, there is historical accuracy behind much of this. But that alone doesn’t justify a heavy focus on the subject unless it’s going to be addressed thoroughly. And, like Martin, there were times where this book seemed to be reveling in the horror of it all, rather than including them for any truly important reason. Pay attention to the trigger warnings on this one, for sure.

My real problem came down to the romance, however. In so many ways, this romance exemplified the many ways that romantasy tropes can go wrong if sprinkled into any old plot line without much care. For some background, an important feature of this book is the fact that the MMC (morally grey with tons of secrets, obvs) participated in the razing of the MFC’s people. Which, again, this sort of thing is a staple of the genre, and the obligatory reveals of his ulterior motivations can be expected. But, necessarily, that explanation has to be incredibly good to counterbalance the actual gruesome harm he participated in, something that cannot be simply erased. Some authors are capable of turning this corner with their MMC. Others…are not.

Beyond this, the entire set up of the book and the romance is based around the fact that the MMC captures the FMC and keeps her as a “body slave.” So, that’s a pretty heavy topic to manage in a romance, that sort of dynamic, where the power imbalance is so extreme. Again, this can be navigated, but it takes a careful hand on the wheel to do so. Unfortunately, we didn’t see that here. Instead, the romance starts up quickly and hits hard, without ever really dealing with the facts of this power imbalance. And for me, this left an inescapable sheen of ickiness over the entire affair.

Further, the inclusion of dragons into this story lead to a strong focus on mating bonds. Beyond the laziness factor of this trope (which allows authors to just handwave away any actual character growth or natural progression of romantic interest/feelings and instead justify instalove/lust), the language that accompanied this choice rubbed up incredibly awkwardly (to put it mildly) against the slave/master nature of the relationship. “You’re mine.” “Say you’re mine.” etc. etc., are all very common phrases in romance/romantasy, especially when you’re dealing with any sort of mating bond situation. However, when paired with the set up of this story and the dynamics between Juliannus and Malina, this all began to feel rather gross. And, again, this isn’t to say that mating bond books can’t be done well! I think “Bride” by Ali Hazelwood is an excellent example of how to navigate this trope, avoiding the instalove pitfall as well as the questions regarding consent. This book, however, did not do any of that.

So yeah, I really disliked this book. I think it’s a perfect example of the “plug and play” style of writing that is all too prevalent in the rising star that is the romantasy genre. Everyone wants to cash in and the results are books that feel as if the author/publisher simply drew popular tropes out of a hat and mashed them together, with no concern for how well they would work together. Mating bonds and the possessive language that often accompany it? Sometimes good! Pair that with a slave/master dynamic and fastburn intimacy? Absolutely not.

I don’t recommend this book. I think there are much better examples of all the tropes included to be found elsewhere, and I think the author’s inability to properly explore the power imbalance of her central romance ruins any attempt to enjoy it.

Rating 4: Tropes gone bad and a rather gross slave/master romance at its heart really ruined this one for me.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Firebird” can be found on these Goodreads lists: Greco – Roman Fantasy and April 2025 Most Anticipated Romance Releases.