Tag: 5 Rating

Serena’s Review: “Queen of the Night Sky”

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Book: “Queen of the Night Sky” by Amalie Howard

Publishing Info: Avon, March 2026

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

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

Book Description: The Kingdom of Oryndhr has been saved by the will of the Royal Stars. But King Roshan, once Sura’s best friend and chosen love, has changed. She can sense corruption growing in him, and her own magic is being twisted by his command to dangerous ends. As dreams of her strange shadow guardian return in force, she is left unsure of her path—and of her heart.

When an attempt on her life leads to her rescue on the back of an azdaha, the dragon-like creature she once thought a myth, Sura truly finds herself in uncharted territory—in a land far beyond Oryndhyr’s borders. Everlea is full of magic, ruled by the deadly and enigmatic Night King, Darrius. And to Sura’s shock, Darrius is none other than the man in her dreams…and possibly her soul fated mate.

As a prophecy unfolds, the old gods awaken, and a war between kingdoms looms, Sura has no she must fully embrace her destiny as Starkeeper and the entirety of her power before it’s too late. But all power comes at a cost…and darkness has a way of slithering into the smallest spaces.

Previously Reviewed: “The Starlight Heir”

Review:Once more for the people in the back: no more bait-and-switch in romance/romantasy! I honestly am at the point where it’s incredibly hard to review some romantasy books that I read. Mostly because authors/publishers seem to refuse to properly label their books/series initially, which then leads me to epic levels of rage when I run into tropes and themes that I know that I don’t care for and would otherwise simply have avoided rather than read and end up needing to write a negative review. Because, at the end of the day, book reviews and reading experiences are entirely subjective. I can’t speak to the quality of any particular romantasy book outside my own experience of it. Sure, those who enjoy certain tropes may love it! But how could I say when I am not the reader for that book? I don’t like certain tropes, and thus, I don’t usually like those books, which then leads to negative reviews. Simple.

All of this to say, while I read the first book in this series and didn’t strongly connect with it, I was still interested enough to see where the story would go from there. It wasn’t doing anything extraordinary, but the general set-up was fine, and I was happy enough to see how the romance would play out. Well, color me surprised when I opened up this second book and discovered I was suddenly reading a “why choose” romantasy, not at all what had been set up in the first book.

Like I said, there are plenty of readers who enjoy this trope, and I am by no means saying that it is objectively bad. Just not for me. But here I am, now having committed to reviewing the second in a duology based on the set-up from the first book, which was your fairly standard romantasy fare, only to find it swerve straight into a trope that I avoid so as not to be writing negative reviews for books that just aren’t for me. Well, the publisher/author really has no one to blame for this but themselves. Had I known in the first book that this is where it was going, I would have just passed, and this negative review wouldn’t exist. Hate to do it, but… properly label your dang romantasy titles from the very start!

So, I won’t talk any more about the romance. I didn’t like it. I didn’t care for the characters involved, and I particularly didn’t care for the imbalanced level of connection and history between various pairings, thus making the entire “why choose” premise feel poorly weighted in one direction. The emotional stakes were definitely weighted one way, and the character assassination that had to happen to set up the other romantic interest was frustrating to read. Even by “why choose” standards, I don’t think this one was done particularly well.

Probably not a surprise, but this book goes hard on its spicy scenes. Given the balance between spice and plot is weighted heavily toward the former, I will say that these scenes were written well. I wasn’t terribly invested in the characters involved, but the author did a good job avoiding cringe-worthy descriptions or oddness, something that isn’t always a guarantee with romance. Readers who are enjoying the romance of it all will be pleased, I think, with how the love scenes play out.

However, the book also feels way longer than it needs to be. Actually stepping back and looking at what happens in the plot, it’s very little. And the book itself is not short by any means. I think some healthy editing would have tightened this up into a more streamlined affair and a more enjoyable read all around. While the spice scenes were good for what they were, this balance between romance and plot did feel off, and one or two fewer erotic scenes might have helped the plot feel more relevant.

Shocking no one, I didn’t love this one. I hate having to write negative reviews, especially when I’ve been contacted directly to review a book. But I’m committed to honest feedback first and foremost, so here we are. As I’ve harped on ad nauseam at this point, I really do try my best to simply avoid romantasy reads that contain tropes that I’m not going to enjoy. It’s incredibly frustrating that I can list off a handful of books within the last six months alone where I went in being sold one thing and then ran headfirst into the brick wall of these very same “avoid at any cost” tropes. And here, had I known going in that the duology was taking a hard turn into this trope, I would have simply passed when asked to review this. Alas.

Note: I want to include a few points for transparency and clarity.

I received a copy of this book from a marketer who did identify it as a “why choose” trope. But I also think this makes part of my point even stronger: most readers are not hearing directly from publishers and thus would not have been given the opportunity to note that the type of romance series they started was definitively NOT the one they would be continuing if they picked up this second book.

The marketer has also since informed me that this book is identified as “why choose” on retail sites. That said, I think it is fairly unreasonable to expect romance readers to be on the constant look out for major switches to the type of romance they are reading between one book in the series and another. If I started a cozy romance novel, and then book two suddenly became a dark romance, I don’t think an updated listing on Amazon could counter the justified frustration at a bait-and-switch of that kind.

Rating 5: Not for me. “Why choose” fans will likely be pleasantly surprised, but if you thought the first book was representative of where the duology was headed, you’d be wrong.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Queen of the Night Sky” can be found on this Goodreads list: March 2026 Most Anticipated Romance Releases.

Kate’s Review: “We’re Not Safe Here”

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Book: “We’re Not Safe Here” by Rin Chupeco

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, November 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher

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

Book Description: Wispy Falls’ town motto is: “You’ll be safe here!” But that doesn’t seem to be true. Because in Wispy Falls, monsters live in the woods, and children go missing, and the bodies are beginning to stack up.

A seventeen-year-old vlogger known as Storymancer is determined to get to the bottom of what’s wrong in Wispy Falls. A few years ago his six-year-old brother went missing in the woods and no one in town seemed to care enough to find him.

So now he’s investigating why every household participates in something called the Bloodmoon Ritual, why cryptid sightings are so common, and why everyone who goes into the woods goes missing. If he can’t fix what’s wrong with the town, he just might be the next body in the woods.

Told primarily through video transcripts, message boards, and radio shows, this Welcome to Nightvale-inspired horror will chill you to your core.

Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for sending me an ARC of this novel!

It’s been awhile since I read a Rin Chupeco book, not necessarily because I was avoiding it (on the contrary, I’ve enjoyed basically all of the Chupeco books I’ve read!), but just because I lose track of authors sometimes. So when “We’re Not Safe Here” ended up in my mailbox I was excited to say the least. And reading the description of the book made me all the more interested. I love a found footage/media story format, I like the idea of weird dangerous cryptids lurking outside a strange town, and if you’re going to reference “Welcome to Night Vale” I’m going to be all the more intrigued. Quirky and weird podcast reference from awhile back in my personal lore? Yes please! I went in with pretty optimistic expectations. But I’m sorry to say that “We’re Not Safe Here” didn’t live up to the expectations I had.

But first the good. The description does reference the podcast “Welcome to Night Vale”, which was a huge incentive for me to read it because I was REALLY into “Night Vale” for a few years back in the day (I kind of lost interest after the StrexCorp storyline wrapped up). And as I was reading it I definitely got the “Night Vale” vibes, with the found media transcripts of broadcasts and the generally casual speak of cryptids and monsters stalking to woods really harkening to the charm of that podcast that really pulled me in. I also loved some of the gnarly descriptions of the various cryptids, especially The Backwards Lady. Because man, do I LOVE a weirdly misshapen and creepy and menacing lady whose face you cannot see. Chupeco has always done a really good job of taking on these kinds of unsettling horror tropes, and the concept of all of these cryptids and the found footage transcriptions really was incredibly interesting and promising for a horror novel. Top tier concept for sure.

Unfortunately, it never really quite came together. I feel like we were getting hints throughout our transcripts and video descriptions and chat logs and message boards, but it felt like it kept going on and on and there wasn’t really much steady build up. It was more of a continual stall out. I also found a lot of aspects of it to be pretty confusing. I had to keep paging back earlier to double check my facts, and I don’t know if it was because of the format of so much transcription and video footage or if it was something else. And by the time we did get to the end I felt like there were a lot of questions that remained unanswered, as well as a really abrupt end which felt unsatisfying. It was such a shame because I generally have enjoyed the books that Chupeco has put out in the past, and this one felt like such a miss it was kind of shocking.

“We’re Not Safe Here” had a great concept and premise but didn’t execute it super well. I’d sadly have to say skip it.

Rating 5: A great concept with some nice callbacks to “Welcome To Night Vale”, but it dragged a bit by the end and felt rushed and muddled.

Reader’s Advisory:

“We’re Not Safe Here” is included on the Goodreads list “Midnight Reads”.

Kate’s Review: “All The Little Houses”

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Book: “All The Little Houses” by May Cobb

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Landmark, January 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received and eARC from NetGalley

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

Book Description: It’s the mid-1980s in the tiny town of Longview, Texas. Nellie Anderson, the beautiful daughter of the Anderson family dynasty, has burst onto the scene. She always gets what she wants. What she can’t get for herself… well, that’s what her mother is for. Because Charleigh Andersen, blond, beautiful, and ruthlessly cunning, remembers all too well having to claw her way to the top. When she was coming of age on the poor side of East Texas, she was a loser, an outcast, humiliated, and shunned by the in-crowd, whose approval she’d so desperately thirsted for. When a prairie-kissed family moves to town, all trad wife, woodworking dad, wholesome daughter vibes, Charleigh’s entire self-made social empire threatens to crumble. Who will be left standing when the dust settles?

From the author of The Hunting Wives comes a deliciously wicked new thriller about mean girls, mean moms, and the delicious secrets inside all the little houses.

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

When I was a kid I had a nanny that really loved “Little House on the Prairie”. I remember her sometimes trying to get me to watch it, but I found it so utterly boring that she never was able to convert me. I have read a good deal of the “Little House” books (I’m a Minnesota girl after all), but never got into the TV show mythos (as it’s extensive and different from the books I hear tell). When I started reading “All the Little Houses” by May Cobb, it took me a little bit to realize that I was reading a book that was a 1980s kind of interpretation of the “Little House” TV show, but when I did I thought ‘oh, that’s kinda fun!’ Given that Cobb wrote “The Hunting Wives”, which is now a hit show on Netflix (I haven’t watched it yet but it sounds wild), I was really hoping for something unhinged and covered in suds and over the top dramatics. I live for that stuff. And with a “Little House” vibe it felt all the more ripe for the picking. Unfortunately it didn’t click for me.

But first the good stuff. As much as I am not a “Little House on the Prairie” person, I know enough about it to be able to make the connections to the characters that are representative of the characters from the show, and some of that I really enjoyed. Especially because some of the directions that a few of the characters were taken (specifically Ethan, the patriarch of the Swift family, though the reveal here is a bit more in line with the real life Charles Ingalls as opposed to TV show or book… if you know, you know). I also enjoyed the character of Jackson, Charleigh’s best friend who is an interior decorator and happens to be a gay man in the 1980s, feeling a need to be careful while also being flaunted by Charleigh as a novelty. While none of the characters were particularly likable (more on that in a bit), at least Jackson’s prickly and abrasive behaviors made some sense as being a gay man during this time was incredibly difficult.

But there were definitely some stumbles that came with this book. As mentioned above, most of the characters were completely unlikable, and very few of them had the complexities to make their terrible personalities bearable/understandable. This was especially disappointing for the character of Nellie, who is clearly the Nellie Oleson analog but is SO awful that it’s not even fun to follow her in her chapters. And even when we got a slight tread towards making her nuanced or at least a little bit complicated, Cobb never quite pulled the trigger with her to have her move beyond being completely horrendous (and while I haven’t seen “Little House on the Prairie” all that much, I’ve seen enough clips to know that Nellie has a HUGE redemption/development arc, so that made this even more disappointing). Also, these characters seemed to be 1980s caricatures of the TV show, but then also references the TV show as something in universe. Which was confusing. And finally, the ending was incredibly rushed. We got some hints throughout the book about a murder or at least a dead body in the local lake/pond with question as to who it is and who did it, but then by the time we got to the climax it landed with a huge thud, and then abruptly ended. Generally I can forgive a lot if there is a lot of suds and over the top melodrama, but it wasn’t enough to bolster it above the ho-humness of the execution.

“All the Little Houses” had potential but didn’t really meet it. It may work for others, but it didn’t really work for me.

Rating 5: With very few likable characters and a thud of an ending, even the soapy fun couldn’t fully redeem this book.

Reader’s Advisory:

“All the Little Houses” is included on the Goodreads list “2026 Mystery/Thriller New Releases”.

Kate’s Review: “With A Vengeance”

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Book: “With A Vengeance” by Riley Sager

Publishing Info: Dutton, June 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 train. No stops. A deadly game of survival and revenge.

In 1942, six people destroyed Anna Matheson’s family. Twelve years later, she’s ready for retribution.

Under false pretenses, Anna has lured those responsible for her family’s downfall onto a luxury train from Philadelphia to Chicago, an overnight journey of fourteen hours. Her goal? Confront the people who’ve wronged her, get them to confess their crimes, and deliver them into the hands of authorities waiting at the end of the line. Justice will at last be served.

But Anna’s plan is quickly derailed by the murder of one of the passengers. As the train barrels through the night, it becomes clear that someone else on board is enacting their own form of revenge—and that they won’t stop until everyone else is dead.

With time running out before the train reaches its destination, Anna is forced to hunt the killer in their midst while protecting the people she hates the most. In order to destroy her enemies, she must first save them—even though it means putting her own life at risk.

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

For me, summer has some guarantees that I can always count on, and one of those things is a new Riley Sager book. I’ve been reading a Riley Sager book every summer for the past eight years, starting with “Final Girls” and going with a new book every year from there. It’s just a staple of the season to me. And because of this it was obvious that I was going to read his newest novel “With A Vengeance”. It’s just what summer brings. I know that Sager has his fans and his detractors, but I haven’t had a bad experience with any of his books, finding all of them at the very least entertaining and ultimately good reads. That is, until now.

Hey, eight out of nine ain’t bad, right? (source)

But first the good. I an always respect and author who wants to switch things up in their writing, and “With A Vengeance” is a huge tone shift for Sager, as the sub-genre is an Agatha Christie-esque locked door mystery and the time period if post-WWII 1950s America. It’s a huge shift from his previous works, and I definitely applaud him taking this risk. I also think that he has the bare bone foundation of a solid locked room mystery, with a dubious cast of characters who could all be suspects, and with a pretty well thought out motivation at the heart of Anna wanting revenge for her brother’s and father’s deaths and her ruined life, as well as having pretty clear reasons for many of the conspirators that sought to take her father down. Sager has a solid set up here, I can’t deny that.

But the execution was off. There were so many twists and turns that were supposed to be interesting and scandalous, but they were either predictable, or they just felt like they were too many things going on at once. We’d have one solution, only to have another new solution, only to backtrack on ANOTHER solution, with a few obvious red herrings thrown in that didn’t really work. By the time we got to the third or fourth shocking twist, I was pretty much over it, and I was just ready for the train to pull into the station so that it could all be over and done with. On top of that, while I thought that the characters had believable motivations to want to set up Anna’s father to take a pretty horrendous fall, I didn’t feel like I got to know ANY of them beyond their villainy (with one possible exception I won’t spoil here, but their reasoning was at least humanizing to the character which made them a bit more interesting), or their need for revenge in Anna’s case. Anna also didn’t do much for mer, as her rage and desire to get her vengeance was understandble, but there wasn’t much else to her, which made her less interesting and made her less likable because of it. I know that Sager can be pretty hit or miss for lots of people when it comes to his protagonists, but this was the first time I just really didn’t care about a main character in one of his books. I really and truly wanted more and it just sputtered out.

“With A Vengeance” had so much potential but never quite reached it. I’m not giving up on Sager after one misstep, but as someone who has been a staunch defender of him in the past, it was a disappointment to be sure.

Rating 5: While I appreciate Sager experimenting with other sub-genres of thrillers, “With A Vengeance” was too muddled and didn’t have enough well developed characters to really endear me to the story.

Reader’s Advisory:

“With a Vengeance” is included on the Goodreads list “Haunting Books For A Stormy Night”.

Serena’s Review: “The Knight and the Moth”

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

Book: “The Knight and the Moth” by Rachel Gillig

Publishing Info: Orbit, May 2025

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

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

Book Description: Sybil Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all. Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams she receives visions from six unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and common folk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum’s windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams.

Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybil’s visions. But when Sybil’s fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them. For the world outside the cathedral’s cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking, and as much as she’d rather avoid Rodrick’s dark eyes and sharp tongue, only a heretic can defeat a god.

Review: Some may have noticed that I didn’t review the “One Dark Window” duology back when it came out a few years ago. Well, I tried! But it was one of those book that I just couldn’t get into to, struggling through the entire reading experience. Sometimes I’ll post reviews for books like this if I feel like I have anything constructive to contribute to the conversation or if it’s a title I committed to covering for a publicist. But the rest of time, I usually just pass them by. Well, over the last several years, that duology has exploded in popularity! So much so that I began to question my initial judgement of the book I read. Was I, perhaps, just not in the right mood for it? Did the second book (which I didn’t read) massively improve on the first? People seemed to universally love this series! That being the case, when I saw that Gillig was coming out with her debut adult romantasy title, I was excited to give it a chance! Perhaps I would finally get to hitch a ride on this hype train!

Whelp. Not so much. I really struggled to enjoy this book and was reminded strongly why I didn’t connect with the first one. They both had similar struggles with writing structure and characterization. But let’s start with some positives! The book started on a strong note, with the introduction of this world and the set up for themes regarding religion and prophesy. Some of these initial scenes were incredibly compelling, and it was all the more disappointing seeing some of this early strong work flail under weak characters as the story continued. I also have to give a shout-out to the fun gargoyle companion, the only character who actually seemed to, you know, have a personality? Due to how out-of-step I was with my opinion of Gillig’s other book, I won’t be surprised to find myself on the opposite side of this one as well. But I can almost guarantee that the other reviewers who may, like me, struggle with this book will ALSO love the gargoyle!

I think I would have enjoyed the gargoyle on its own, but it did end up standing out in stark contrast to our main character and the love interest, only highlighting just how little THERE was there for either of them! I couldn’t tell you a single fact about either of these characters, other than things that were strictly having to do with the actual plot points of this story. She is a seer, he is a knight. Yes, yes, and? As we follow Sybil, she was by far the worse of the two. Her “voice,” such as it was, was incredibly bland and dull. This carried over to the romance. We were never given any reason why these two would even like each other, let alone fall in love. It was like reading about to cardboard cut outs of people snark badly at each other and then suddenly declare their deep feelings. Chemistry is a hard thing to peg, but man, when it’s lacking, it’s obvious. And that was definitely the case here!

I was also reminded why I struggled to enjoy the previous book I read by this author. I simply do not enjoy her writing style. There’s a very odd mix of purple prose woven in alongside incredibly modern vernacular. She’s also way too fond of writing incomplete sentences. Every once in a while, this choice can make sense to add emphasis or weight to particular scene or moment. But Gillig uses it constantly and to an overwhelming degree. Here’s a quick example of what I’m talking about: “I shivered. Turned to the gargoyle.” Why not just put an “and” in there? Or simply put a comma after “shivered.” There are many options, but again and again this structure is utilized, making the writing feel choppy and, I think, contributing to the sense of distance I felt from the characters. Often it’s these little style choices that give readers the clues to pick up on the personality of the characters they’re following. And when the writing is choppy and inconsistent, so, too, the characters feel lacking.

The story was also incredibly predictable. And anything the reader couldn’t guess based on any previous exposure to typical fantasy plot points is almost spoon fed to them by the author herself. By the end of the book, I felt like not only had this one followed a familiar structure (very similar to “One Dark Window” in fact) but that I could easily guess the conclusion of the duology as a whole, without even picking up the second book.

I don’t really know how to conclude this review. Obviously, this was a complete miss for me. But I also know that Gillig is a fairly beloved author at this point, and that this book in particular is incredibly hyped in the genre. So, I guess if you’re a huge fan of her previous duology, this one might work for you. However, if you struggled to connect to this author’s style before, this was more of the same, in all of the worst ways.

Rating 5: Choppy sentences, purple prose, and characters who read like wet cardboard; unfortunately, not the book for me.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Knight and the Moth” can be found on these Goodreads lists: Epic High Fantasy/Romance/Mythology in 2025 and Gothic Fantasy.

Serena’s Review: “A Crown So Silver”

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

Book: “A Crown So Silver” by Lyra Selene

Publishing Info: Orbit, January 2025

Where Did I Get this Book: Netgalley!

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

Book Description: After her sacrifice on the Ember Moon, Fia is flush with powerful magic and eager to rush into battle against her murderous sister, Eala. However, Fia’s new husband Irian suggests they bide their time and retreat to the Silver Isle, a snowy island at the edge of the fae world.

Ruled by the cunning smith-king, the Silver Isle proves far from a safe haven. Fia and Irian become embroiled in the Tournament of Kings competing for a magical forging of immense power. Their relationship will be put to the test as they navigate their conflicting motivations, shifting allegiances, and ancient magic.

With the end of the tournament looming and Eala’s threat growing, Fia must decide just how much she’s willing to sacrifice to defeat her sister.

Previously Reviewed: “A Feather So Black”

Review: This was a highly anticipated sequel for me going into 2025! I absolutely loved the first book, “A Feather So Black,” as it took me completely by surprise with its perfectly tuned fairytale vibes and ability to present both a competent heroine as well as a non-cringeworthy love triangle that resolved in a believable manner. There was also the set up for an excellent villain with the twist that came towards the end. And, well…alas.

I’m really going to try to restrain myself from devolving into an incoherent rant with this one. But man, it’s going to be hard! I would have disliked this book on its own, but as a sequel to one that I enjoyed so much?! It’s hard to swallow. To start from the more broad view, I think this is a perfect example of a series that was unnecessarily extended into a trilogy. I’m not sure if it was the publisher or this was always the author’s plan, but something went very wrong with the pacing and story-structure of this series when we got to this book.

Simply put: nothing much happens! We barely see some of the major characters from the first book (including the original love interest who by his own rights seemed to have an interesting arc set up to follow) or even much of the villain. What plot we do have devolves into what feels like an extended side quest with stakes largely disconnected from the greater conflict as a whole. And that’s not even touching the fact that the first third of this book seems to be one long string of spicy scenes, which could be fine on their own if it wasn’t for the incredibly disjointed feeling this brings to the pacing of this novel, to start so heavily in this and only this area.

This point gets to one of my major gripes, which is with the way the romance was handled. Which is to say, it wasn’t handled well at all. I will acknowledge that perhaps it is more challenging to write a romantic pairing after they have committed themselves to one another, but it is by no means impossible! Especially if you’ve already established your characters as individuals with thoughts, fears, and goals outside of the romance, as well as a greater overall threat that they must face together. Relationships don’t simply become smooth sailing the moment they get together, but at the same time, more and more romantasy authors seem to contort their characters into the most contrived positions possible all in pursuit of “tension” while at the the same time forfeiting all believability or consistency within the character themselves.

We have both main character behaving absolutely terribly to one another (often completely out of character on their own) and then, worst of all, we have the introduction of ANOTHER LOVE TRIANGLE! Look, book one got extra props for handling a love triangle in a good way. But now this one gets extra negatives for the sheer gall and lack of creativity on display in going back to the same well twice (not even the same love triangle, mind you! A completely new character is introduced!!) I almost put the book down for good once I saw this happening.

Fia also read as almost completely unrecognizable from the character we met in the first book. There, she had worked hard to gain the abilities she had, and she was aware of her limitations. Here, in one of the very first action scenes we get, we see her behaving like the most foolish of fools, complete with “snarky” comments of bravado followed by immediate regret as she realizes the idiocy of her decisions. In many ways, she suddenly read like the worst of teenage YA protagonists, rather than the adult woman she came across as in the first book.

I’m honestly not sure what happened here. My best guess still goes all the way back to what I said in the beginning, that there simply wasn’t enough story to justify this book. And, lacking any true plot, the author instead stuffed it full of angst between characters (much of which could have been resolved with frank discussions and empathy for one another) and added another ridiculous love triangle into the mix to boot.

If you enjoyed the first book, buckle in for this one! I guess if you really enjoy love triangles and romantic angst in the form of miscommunication, than you may enjoy this more than me. All I can say is that now I’m going into the third book pretty much peeping between my fingers. Will we get the hat trick of a THIRD love triangle??

Rating 5: Maybe it would have been a “6” on its own, but as it’s a massive letdown from the first book…well, here we are.

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Crown so Silver” isn’t on any Goodreads lists yet, but it should be on Upcoming Sequels.

Ripley’s Reviews: “Ripley Under Water”

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

“Ripley’s Reviews” is an ongoing series where I will review every book in Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripley” Series, as well as multiple screen adaptations of the novels. I will post my reviews on the first Thursday of the month, and delve into the twisted mind of one Tom Ripley and all the various interpretations that he has come to life within. Up next is the final book in the series, “Ripley Under Water”.

Book: “Ripley Under Water” by Patricia Highsmith

Publishing Info: Alfred A Knopf, October 1991

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

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

Book Description: Tom Ripley passes his leisured days at his French country estate tending the dahlias, practicing the harpsichord, and enjoying the company of his lovely wife, Heloise. Never mind the bloodstains on the basement floor.

But some new neighbors have moved to Villeperce: the Pritchards, just arrived from America. they are a ghastly pair, with vulgar manners and even more vulgar taste. Most inconvenient, though, is their curiosity. Ripley does, after all, have a few things to hide. When menacing coincidences begin to occur, a spiraling contest of sinister hints and mutual terrorism ensues, resulting in one of Patricia Highsmith’s most elegantly harrowing novels to date.

Review: Happy 2025! I guess? New Year, new me, etcetera, and while I’m feeling pretty nervous about what this year has in store, I feel like we have the perfect transition here about to begin with my “Ripley’s Reviews” series. For you see, in the spirit of out with the old and in with the new, we are ending the first phase of this ongoing blog romp, as we have reached the end of the Tom Ripley books with “Ripley Under Water”! Patricia Highsmith published this book in 1991 and then passed away four years later, and therefore we are at a crossroads for how we follow Ripley as my series continues. I was hoping we’d get a pretty slamdunk ending to Ripley’s adventures after some shaky twists and turns. Unfortunately, that isn’t really what we got here.

Me in the final pages of this novel (source).

I found this to be more of the same from this series. Tom Ripley is still living at Belle Ombre with Heloise (oh Heloise. I enjoy her, she’s so daffy), just trying to tend to his garden and live life in relative comfort and opulence. And once again someone enters his life potentially threatening his comfort and stature, this time in the form of a boorish American couple called The Pritchards, who know a lot about his past and plan to make him suffer for it because… reasons? I did like the idea of Tom being on the receiving end of a little bit of torment for once, though the Pritchards were pretty two dimensional as villains, and I felt like we sleep walked through the story as Ripley attempts to outmaneuver them and keep his secrets hidden, even as they escalate and a literal body end up on Ripley’s literal doorstep. It’s entertaining, but nothing really stood out as unique or original. At least in “The Boy Who Followed Ripley” we had some really campy moments to even out the drudgery of Tom playing cat and mouse again. Here it’s just the same old song and dance, and while I enjoy Ripley very much and find him to be quite a character, I’ve realized that he needs supporting characters to play off of for his stories to really be successful. But I feel like as the series has gone on we’ve just gotten roadblocks and warm bodies that we know aren’t going to succeed in outwitting him.

And the saddest part of this book is that while it’s the final book in the series, it just kind of ends. I don’t know if this was because Highsmith had more plans for Tom but then died before she could bring them to life, or if it was because she knew that it would be a payday for her should she keep writing Ripley books and this one was merely a vessel to get said payday. I hope it wasn’t anything as cynical as that. But man, this just kind of ended without much fanfare. Maybe it’s a statement about how people like Tom Ripley just get to keep getting away with things. But as a narrative ending for Tom Ripley as a character, it just wasn’t very satisfying. I don’t know if I wanted him to get caught. It’s something I’m struggling with as the Joe Goldberg series goes on as well. But I wanted more than this.

Sorry to say that with “Ripley Under Water” we have come to a less than satisfying ending to Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripliad”. I don’t think this was a failed experiment on my part, as now having his full trajectory was interesting to be sure. But I had higher hopes than were warranted.

Well we are officially done with the book series. But we aren’t done yet! We still have a few films and TV adaptations to take on! And my first review of a “Ripley” adaptation is the film “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, which I will review next month! AKA the first movie where I was made aware that Jude Law is a person who exists. Can’t wait to revisit this one.

Rating 5: I’m a bit sad this is how we end the literary adventures of Tom Ripley, as it was more of the same and a weak ending to the series about one of the thriller genre’s MVPs.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Ripley Under Water” is included on the Goodreads list “The Vilest Man in Fiction”.

Serena’s Review: “Fear the Flames”

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

Book: “Fear the Flames” by Olivia Rose Darling

Publishing Info: Delacorte Press, September 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: NetGalley!

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

Book Description: As a child, Elowen Atarah was ripped away from her dragons and imprisoned by her father, King Garrick of Imirath. Years later, Elowen is now a woman determined to free her dragons. Having established a secret kingdom of her own called Aestilian, she’s ready to do what’s necessary to save her people and seek vengeance. Even if that means having to align herself with the Commander of Vareveth, Cayden Veles, the most feared and dangerous man in all the kingdoms of Ravaryn.

Cayden is ruthless, lethal, and secretive, promising to help Elowen if she will stand with him and all of Vareveth in the pending war against Imirath. Despite their contrasting motives, Elowen can’t ignore their undeniable attraction as they combine their efforts and plot to infiltrate the impenetrable castle of Imirath to steal back her dragons and seek revenge on their common enemy.

As the world tries to keep them apart, the pull between Elowen and Cayden becomes impossible to resist. Working together with their crew over clandestine schemes, the threat of war looms, making the imminent heist to free her dragons their most dangerous adventure yet. But for Elowen, her vengeance is a promise signed in blood, and she’ll stop at nothing to see that promise through.

Review: I’ve had a very hit and miss experience with popular dragon romantasy books over the last year or so. I haven’t reviewed either of them here, but over the last year and half I’ve read both “Fourth Wing” and “When the Moon Hatched.” Really hated the former, but, after a rough start, did end up enjoying the latter for the most part. In perusing other fantasy reviewers’ thoughts of these two wildly popular titles, again and again I saw “Fear the Flames” popping up as dragon romantasy title worth checking out. So, armed with my usual caution about BookkTok books (sorry, not sorry), I requested a copy of this when I saw it was being picked up by a trad publisher and re-released this fall. And…oof.

I usually like to start with the good things, but I honestly am having a hard time with this one. I mean, I guess there were the bare bones of good ideas here. But at the same time, those bare bones aren’t creatively unique to this author. Sure, dragons are always a good idea, but you can’t really give any one author tons of credit for simply including them in their book. And in this particular case, the dragons were so wasted as to negate the promise of them to begin with! They’re introduced in the prologue and we are told that our super special protagonist bonded to several dragons as a baby. This later causes her family to harm, reject, and banish her, caging her dragons away from her. But we’re never told any details about this! What does it mean to be bonded to numerous dragons? How rare is this? What abilities does this grant her? And then, said dragons don’t even show up again until the last 100 pages of the book! They are wasted in such a way as to be almost inexcusable, and frankly, it made me feel like I had been sold a bill of false goods on the basic premise of this book.

The incoherent world-building continued throughout. We hear that various nations are at war, but we are never told what drives these conflicts, what the parties involved want, or any history behind it. There are dragons in this world, and some hints at various sorts of magic, but how does any of these fantasy elements actually work? Nothing is fleshed out in any way! It feels as if the author looked into what fantasy tropes were currently popular, and then just threw them all in here. A weird metaphor, but go with me: in a good fantasy novel, an author will combine ingredients that may seem strange on their own, but together they become a lush and rich stew. Here, it’s like the author was a small child who went out in the yard and made “stew” with sticks and stones and tried to pass it off as the same.

The romance was equally disappointing. It pretty much happens instantaneously and then the rest of the book is just the hero saying some variation of “who did this to you” throughout the rest of the book. Oh, and following around the heroine as she shops. And here, too, we had more problems. There is coffee, lingerie, and romance novels in this world, all of which our leading lady loves. Except, oh wait, she’s been living in hiding throughout most of her life and she says early in the book that her only priority is protecting the people of her small, hidden realm. If that’s the case, it’s hard to buy that she’s had much time to focus on these frivolous things. Nothing wrong with these pastimes (heaven knows I enjoy all of these things too!) but it makes no sense in the world that is built here or for this character in particular, a woman who it seems would have had practically zero time for leisure, comfort, or excess.

Honestly, this book made me mad. It feels as if more and more often traditional publishers are combing through the various indie books that have been self-published looking for any that have the currently-popular tropes of the moment and the re-purposing them as fast as possible. And I do mean as fast as possible! The entire point of trad publishing vs. indie publishing is the vast number of resources they have to enhance a book to its best version. But here, and in other similar instances, it feels like the publisher forego any of the professional editing they should be bringing to new titles and instead just threw a new cover on the original version and got it out as fast as possible! Got to if you’re book is nothing but vibes and tropes and who knows when those could change! It’s so disappointing and lets down not only the authors themselves who are now missing out on the crucial edits trad publishers can offer to enhance books, but also to readers who have higher expectations for books published in the traditional manner.

I really disliked this book. And even more so, I really dislike the trend that this book perfectly highlights. Books are more than tropes or vibes, and sooner or later, readers are going to pick up on the fact that that’s all certain books/publishers/authors have on offer anymore. I can’t recommend this one. Perhaps if you’re a die-hard romantasy fan, but even then, the market is so flooded right now that it’s impossible to throw a stone in any direction and not hit a million other titles just like it, some much better than this.

Rating 5: An incoherent mess that feels like it was picked up just because its tropes matched the ones currently popular.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Fear the Flames” isn’t on any relevant Goodreads lists currently but it should be on Dragon Lovers’ Books.

Kate’s Review: “You Will Never Be Me”

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

Book: “You Will Never Be Me” by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Publishing Info: Berkley, August 2024

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

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

Book Description: When cracks start forming in an influencer’s curated life, she finds out that jealousy is just as viral as a video in this riveting suspense novel by bestselling author Jesse Q. Sutanto.

Influencer Meredith Lee didn’t teach Aspen Palmer how to blossom on social media just to be ditched as soon as Aspen became big. So can anyone really blame Mer for doing a little stalking? Nothing serious, more like Stalking Lite.

Then Mer gets lucky; she finds one of Aspen’s kids’ iPads and swipes it. Now she has access to the family calendar and Aspen’s social media accounts. Would anyone else be able to resist tweaking things a little here and there, showing up in Aspen’s place for meetings with potential sponsors? Mer’s only taking back what she deserves—what should have been hers. 

Meanwhile, Aspen doesn’t understand why her perfectly filtered life is falling apart. Sponsors are dropping her, fellow influencers are ghosting her, and even her own husband seems to find her repulsive. If she doesn’t find out who’s behind everything, she might just lose it all. But what everyone seems to forget is that Aspen didn’t become one of TikTok’s biggest momfluencers by being naive.

When Meredith suddenly goes missing, Aspen’s world is upended and mysterious threats begin to arrive—but she won’t let anything get in the way of her perfect life again.

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

I’m really happy to see that more and more family influencers are getting called out, or at the very least more scrutinized, as of late. I think that the very public fall of Ruby Franke helped with this shift, but it’s been a long time coming. It’s probably not too shocking that as more of this has been in the public eye, more books involving family vloggers and family influencers have been cropping up. And I’ve been reaping the benefits, as this kind of plot is catnip for me. So I was obviously very interested in reading “You Will Never Be Me” by Jesse Q. Sutanto, which involves two mommy influencer frenemies named Mer and Aspen, who used to be tight but had a huge falling out that leads to Mer trying to wreck Aspen’s very curated public image. It all sounds great on paper. Sadly, in execution it didn’t get to the level I was hoping for.

You all know that I always start with the good when it comes to a book that I didn’t really connect with, and this time is no different. And the good is REALLY good and something that I don’t get to say too often: THERE IS A FANTASTIC TWIST THAT I DIDN’T SEE COMING IN THIS BOOK! I feel like so much of the time when I take on a thriller of a certain kind I have to complain about a twist that is either unearned, or thrown in at the last moment for shock value, or was easy to spot a mile away. None of these things happen in the big twist in “You Will Never Be Me”. In fact the moment it was revealed I said to myself ‘wait…. HOLD UP!?’, and jumped back to the beginning of the chapter to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I’m not going to say anything here details wise, but Sutanto so expertly dropped it in in such an unexpected place and moment with such a subtle set up that I set my Kindle down for a moment just to process what I had just read. And it’s a bit of a one two punch as well, with a couple dimensions to the twist that made it all the more satisfying. This is how it’s done!

But unfortunately, well executed twist or not, there were a number of aspects to this book that didn’t work for me. For one, Mommy Blog and Influencer satire is starting to be seen more in books, with more and more scandals coming out about these kinds of accounts and more people starting to question what this kind of exposure and exploitation does to the children involved. Always pertinent points, and it can be really well done satire as well as social commentary on something that is becoming more and more talked about. But the problem here is that the examples in this are very heavy handed, even if I don’t necessarily disagree with them. One such example that sticks out is Meredith at one point admitting that she had her child via a sperm donor because she knew that the engagement would go up if she shifted from her initial platform into a mommy influencer like Aspen was. Again, I don’t doubt that on some level family influencers do view their children as content and the more content you have the more engagement you have (I think about the family that adopted an autistic boy from China to use it as a story their followers could keep up with, and then ‘rehomed’ him because he was too difficult and burst their perfect family ideal as presented to their followers). But I had a hard time believing that Mer would be so up front and flippant about it, and it just felt like it was just another way to show how awful she was. Which segues into my other gripe fairly well; both Mer and Aspen, the characters whose POVs we follow, are just really unsympathetic characters with not much depth, which makes it very hard to follow them. I am one hundred percent down for having unlikable characters as protagonists, especially in thrillers and ESPECIALLY if they are women (lord knows male characters get more passes in this way). But I want them to be at least interesting and rounded in their villainy. In this book they felt more like caricatures. Aspen had a little more depth as she feels the need to carry the financial burden in her home, especially since one of her children is diabetic, but we only barely scratched the surface with her. Mer felt like a full cartoon villain at times. I think that had there been a bit more exploration and complexity I could have swallowed it better, but as it was, it just didn’t ever click.

“You Will Never Be Me” didn’t quite live up to the high hopes I had for it. It was refreshing having such a stellar twist, but that wasn’t enough to save it.

Rating 5: A fantastic twist that came earlier than anticipated was well done, but it can’t save the facts that all of the characters are terrible and in a fun way and the satire doesn’t have much bite.

Reader’s Advisory:

“You Will Never Be Me” is included on the Goodreads list “Thrillers You Must Read!”.

Kate’s Review: “Crumbs”

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

Book: “Crumbs” by Danie Stirling

Publishing Info: Clarion Books, July 2022

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

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

Book Description: Falling in love just got sweeter in this charming, romantic YA graphic novel from WEBTOON, the #1 digital comic platform. Ray, a young seer struggling with her powers, discovers first love and friendship in her town’s magic bakery.

In a very special town, there’s an even more unusual bakery with a selection of baked treats hand-crafted to help your dreams come true. For Ray, a quiet young woman with special powers of her own, the order is always the same: a hot tea with a delicious side of romance.

When Ray meets Laurie, the kind barista who aspires to be a professional musician, she gets a real taste of love for the first time. But even with a spark of magic, romance isn’t so simple. Both Ray and Laurie are chasing their own dreams and even when Ray starts to see the future, she can’t predict her fate with Laurie.

Based on the beloved webcomic from WEBTOON, this sweet coming-of-age story of friendship and first love comes to life in graphic novel format with gorgeous illustrations and exclusive content.

Review: I had seen “Crumbs” by Danie Stirling here and there on my various book related social media accounts, mostly Goodreads. The cover kept showing up and I had to look into it because it was, admittedly, super cute, and by the time I did check it out I was pretty convinced that I should read it. What’s not to like, after all? I like graphic novels, the magical elements sounded cute and serene, and I like a nice feel good romance. And besides, I feel like I’m suffering from massive existential dread in my day to day life, so something fluffy and sweet could be welcome. So I checked it out from the library and gave it a go. To mixed results.

I will say that this book is admittedly very sweet and cozy. I do like that there seems to be a sudden rise in more cozy fantasy novels, with titles like “Legends and Lattes” and “The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches” being pretty well liked by audiences, as sometimes you just need a charming and sweet story and you want it to have fantasy elements to boot. I did find “Crumbs” to be a very easy going read, and I liked the light fantasy tidbits like the magical bakery, the phones with little spirits acting as Siris, and even the hinted at broader magical government system and how even THAT can be a bit of a can of worms. I would absolutely LOVE to spend time at Marigold’s bakery, eating cakes and drinking coffees with various spells and charms cast upon them to help the consumer with things like self confidence and romance (but not in a boundary breaking or violating way). I also really liked that our protagonist Ray is a Seer, but not in the usual sense, in that she can only see things that are happening in the present and are existing in the now. So while she can’t, say, predict a giant storm that is going to be coming in a week’s time, she can see that at this moment there is a rainstorm happening miles away. Usually we think of seers in fantasy as being strictly dabbling in the future, so having it be in the now is SO interesting to me. This of course grows and shifts as Ray hones her powers during her time working for the Grand Council, which helps keep society in place and acts as governing body of sorts, and I enjoyed the ins and outs of it.

But I think that there is a clear flip side to this, and that is the fact that it’s almost TOO cozy and twee when it comes to the romance arc between Ray and her boyfriend Laurie. It starts cute and sweet enough, as Laurie is the barista at her aunt Marigold’s bakery and Ray is a regular customer, going there once a week for tea and a romance pastry, and seeing them tentatively begin a relationship was tender and felt pretty realistic in a number of ways. But I think that what was less interesting to me was that their conflicts, while pretty realistic as well, just didn’t feel very high stakes to me, and therefore felt kind of boring. I don’t need there to be a huge melodramatic problem that leans towards full on dysfunction or toxicity. But at the same time, I really don’t find myself super invested when the problems are about mild trust issues (that we don’t REALLY explore beyond one moment) and someone who is too much of a people pleaser. I can understand that there are people who aren’t comfortable with any kind of high stakes unhealthiness being portrayed in a relationship, but man, I do kind of want a little more conflict in my fiction, because for me fiction is about being able to explore those things in a safe way BECAUSE it is fiction. I know that this is personal preference, and that there are almost certainly people out here who will really love this aspect of the book. But it didn’t gel with me.

Finally, I really liked the artwork. It fits the tone of the story, and I always love seeing how food is drawn in graphic novels because it’s fun to see how tantalizing it can be.

(source: Clarion Books)

“Crumbs” didn’t work for me an all levels, but I definitely know there are people who like cozy fantasy and gentle stories about romance and relationships that will enjoy it.

Rating 5: It’s a sweet and gentle romance with some hints of magical creativity, but “Crumbs” didn’t invest me too much in the central characters and their maneuvering through a relationship.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Crumbs” is included on the Goodreads lists “Cozy Fantasy Romance Reads”, and “Food Themed Romance Comics”.