Tag: Romance

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Book: “Reap and Sow” by Charlotte B. Plumb

Publishing Info: Berkley XO, October 2026

Where Did I Get this Book: Netgalley!

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

Book Description: The penniless in Blackbridge have only two choices: Sell the body or sell the soul. And thanks to Eda Shaw, business is booming.

Indentured to a capricious demon known as Mr. Night, Eda and her brothers arrange illicit Pacts on his behalf, luring the city’s most desperate into trading years of their lives for their deepest desires. When a Pact goes awry and her brothers are arrested, Eda realizes she’ll need an infernal ally of her own: Kit’rath, an infuriating demon with a curious penchant for humanity and the only being in Blackbridge that Mr. Night seems to fear. As they race to rescue her family and save the city from ruin, an undeniable connection sparks between mortal and demon.

But Kit’s help doesn’t come cheap. Now, Eda risks losing her heart to the one who claims her years—and saving herself may prove the steepest cost of all.

Review: I honestly can’t even remember how this ended up on my TBR list. I mean, the cover art is pretty, but not particularly memorable. And then the general description sounds fairly familiar. Honestly, there was a period this month where I was having a really hard time connecting with any book I picked up, so I think I was probably just cycling through my backlist on NetGalley and randomly opened this one. And this right here, folks, is a good lesson in sometimes giving those unknowns a fighting chance, because boy did I enjoy this one!

Something about the writing clicked with me right away. Honestly, part of it could come down to my desperate wish for third-person perspective to come back into fashion, so any book that chooses this style starts out a step ahead. But beyond that, from the very start, Plumb writes in a smooth, confident style that easily draws the reader into this world. The plotting and pacing throughout were tight, with the book deftly maneuvering between fast-moving and thrilling action scenes and then lulling back into heartfelt and often very comedic character beats. Many of these story beats are indeed familiar: young woman must save her siblings from danger, promptly gets in over her head in a magical setting, proceeds to become emotionally attached to an unavailable or inappropriate love interest. But man, somehow it all felt fresh and new in Plumb’s hands!

What’s more, the narrative voice and the dialogue were superb! Way too many romantasy authors essentially write something like “characters then banter banteringly” and call it good. But here, Plumb had me laughing out loud more than once and then swooning the very next moment. It also helped that the romance itself developed in what felt like a natural manner. Eda and Kit are never enemies, per se, but more reluctant allies. This dynamic worked incredibly well, and even while they drew closer together, it was a delight watching them still rub each other the wrong way with their own particularities.

I also really enjoyed the cast of side characters and the various villainous characters the book had to offer. This was particularly fun with one specific character who, when first introduced, I was worried would go in a certain, very currently popular romantasy direction. But instead, the book went the complete opposite route and even used Eda’s own perceptions of this character as an important arc of self-reflection for her to follow. I also really liked the dynamics between Eda and her brothers. We don’t get a ton of them all together (naturally, since the brothers still need to be rescued for much of the book), but I did like the bits we did see.

And, of course, Eda was a fantastic lead. Her story is one of learning to recognize her own strengths, but also to come to understand and appreciate those around her. Her love story with Kit is a delicious slow burn, and by the time I got to the end, I was sighing with happiness.

And then came the last paragraph…

Seriously, this was such an odd moment. The book felt fully wrapped up, a nice stand-alone story tied up in a perfect bow. And I’m not sure what happened? It honestly feels like the publisher recognized that this book and the author had a ton of potential and shot off a quick note to the author saying, “Hey, how about we make this a duology??” And the author was like, “Sure!” and then just tacked on this random selection of like three sentences that are just soul-crushing and called it a day. I mean, I’m excited to spend more time in this world and with these characters. But this last paragraph felt so disconnected from the rest of the book, lacking any foreshadowing or really anything to tie in to the book actually in hand, that the entire thing felt off.

I still enjoyed the heck out of this book, so it doesn’t affect my rating, but I couldn’t end without noting that there is a massive cliffhanger now. Of course, you could simply read the book and skip the last paragraph and honestly you’d be perfectly fine! Then just pick it back up and read that last bit right before the sequel releases!

Rating 9: If this is what comes from making a deal with a demon, sign me up! A delightfully charming romantasy that I can’t recommend enough!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Reap and Sow” can be found on this Goodreads list: 2026 Most Anticipated Romantasy & Fantasy Romance Releases

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

Book: “This Shattered Tempest” by Thea Guanzon

Publishing Info: Harper Voyager, October 2026

Where Did I Get this Book: Netgalley

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

Book Description: Throughout their political marriage, Alaric and Talasyn struggled to resist the undeniable pull between them, even as rising tensions forced them on opposite sides of a looming war. Hand in hand, they vanquished the cataclysmic threat of the Moonless Dark—and started to hope for a future together.

That hope is shattered when a devastating attack sets off a chain of events that tears them apart once more. Now, as two rival nations prepare for a final, decisive clash, the Master of the Shadowforged Legion and the last Lightweaver fight to find their way back to each other. But the odds are stacked against them, and time is running out…

Is love enough to rewrite destiny? Can a new beginning rise from the ruins of the past? Or are Alaric and Talasyn doomed to meet as enemies on one last battlefield? This explosive third and final book brings the beloved Hurricane Wars series to a stunning conclusion—where passion and power collide, and the fate of a divided world hangs in the balance.

Previously Reviewed: “The Hurricane Wars” and “A Monsoon Rising”

Review: My review of this one could probably be summed up with one big, drawn-out sigh. I remember distinctly writing about two things in my review of the second book. One, that I was concerned that this didn’t need to be a trilogy, based on the pacing of the plot and its conflicts. And two, that I hoped the miscommunication/deception/general angst of the romance would finally cease in the third book. Well, unfortunately, both of those concerns feel well-founded, and, in hindsight, I think the fact that this was originally a fanfiction story shows more than it should in a traditionally published series.

It’s tough, because there are still things that in a vacuum I enjoyed about this book. But because it was wrapping up the trilogy and was retroactively lowering my opinion of the entire series as a whole, it was difficult to step back and try to evaluate this one on its own merits. I will say that I think this author’s writing is still incredibly strong. For all that I’m going to rant about fanfiction later, there are incredibly talented authors who write fanfiction, and many of them, like this author, deserve to make the leap to traditional publishing. When Guanzon publishes another book, I will definitely be first in line to read it. Her world-building is creative, her characters are complex and interesting, her dialogue is distinctly non-cringy (something I shouldn’t have to say, but unfortunately really does stand out when you finally see good dialogue on the page in romantasy novels), and while I think the romance here was too drawn out, she does write romantic tension well.

But yeah, this book and its place as the cap of the trilogy just didn’t work for me. It started off well enough, picking up immediately after the cliffhanger at the end of the second book. I had high hopes that would help the pacing along, but unfortunately, no. This entire situation was wrapped up so comedically fast and easily that I ran into the exact same question I had in the second book: was any of this really necessary? Instead of feeling like an actual plot point, it instead felt like only a small speed bump inserted to break up the romantic angst.

And, unfortunately, right after this is all wrapped up, we immediately dive right back into the same angst that we’ve been reading about for two books already. I like a slow burn as much as the next person, but this is an example of an author refusing to allow her characters to travel an actual romantic arc. They simply quickly climbed the first half of yearning, got to the angst, and have now hung out here for hundreds upon hundreds of pages.

And at a certain point, it doesn’t matter how strong an author is at writing romantic tension, it’s going to get pretty dull spending your time in the heads of two people who continue to travel the same tired ground of drama over and over in their own minds. It’s incredibly frustrating to read, and I was increasingly annoyed at both of these characters. We’re well past the “enemies” stage, so instead the author threw in tons of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and a truly baffling amount of time spent on each character internally bemoaning the secrets they were keeping from each other. It was honestly awful, and I wish that some editor had taken the author gently by the hand and said, “It’s ok to move on to the ‘lovers’ stage now, honey. Let it go…”

This romantic “tension” took up so much of the third book that the greater conflict largely fell to the side. At the end of the second book, Talasyn loses her magic. This is a pretty big deal. But she doesn’t even really bother with trying to get it back until nearly halfway through the book because instead so much energy must be focused on the romantic travails.

And this gets to the fanfiction roots of it all. Fanfiction, especially long-form fanfiction of the sort that this came from, is often a relationship-focused medium. Likewise, the longer fics out there are truly behemoths, going on for thousands of pages. And this was one of those, originally. But what works for fanfiction, a medium that releases periodically and is consumed in a very different manner than traditional books, doesn’t necessarily translate straight over to traditional publishing. This entire trilogy needed editing. I’m now fully convinced that with a firm editor at the helm, this could have been trimmed down to a duology and would have been a million times better for it. Every aspect would have been strengthened, from the actual plot and conflict to the progression of the romance. Needless side plots could have been removed, since it’s clear they were mostly there to break up the romantic drama. And that same romantic drama could have been pared down to a tight, satisfying romantic arc, instead of leaving readers stranded on a frustrating angst plateau for almost two entire books.

So it’s tough to know who to recommend this one to. Because, like I said, the writing was still strong, and some of the romantic beats were truly good. But the pacing and the romantic drama were all too much for me. If you don’t mind miscommunication/misunderstanding tropes and really enjoy angst, I’d say you’re much more likely to enjoy this book and this trilogy as a whole.

Rating 6: While I can still see the potential of this author, this book was a frustrating conclusion to a trilogy that started off so well.

Reader’s Advisory:

“This Shattered Tempest” can be found on these Goodreads lists: October 2026 Most Anticipated Romance Releases and End of Series in 2026.

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

Book: “The Thief and the Traitor Bride” by V. L. Bovalino

Publishing Info: Forever, September 2026

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

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

Book Description: Nore Gordon is a woman of many talents: she can speak a variety of languages, disguise herself in plain sight, and has made a name for herself as a successful wine merchant. But unbeknownst to those closest to her, it is all a front for Nore’s true role as the favoured spy of the Lindle crown.

Tasked with infiltrating enemy lands in search of a powerful relic, Nore is forced to engage the services of a great thief. Unfortunately, the only person for the job is her estranged husband Caspian. Both Nore and Caspian bear the scars of the disastrous end of their marriage, but if they are to survive their deadly new assignment, they must pose as a happily married couple to avoid detection.

As danger closes in, Nore finds herself tangled in a web of lies and deceit-and though Caspian is at the centre of it all, she may not hate him as much as she once did. But Caspian has betrayed her before, and trust can be far more deadly than deception.

Previously Reviewed: “The Second Death of Locke”

Review: This is a tough review to write, because some of my experience of this book is affected by my absolute adoration for the first in this series. I was blown away by “The Second Death of Locke,” and to spoil my own review, the best parts of this book also just happened to feature the main couple from that book. That being the case, while starting to think about what to say about this book, I found it all coming out rather…ranty. Which isn’t fair! Because this is by no means a bad book; in fact, in many ways, it is an incredibly well-written fantasy romance that doesn’t shirk on the challenges of representing a character who is by no means reliable and who has been actively manipulated her entire life. But…it also wasn’t “Locke,” and I guess that’s what I wanted.

So let’s start with the good things, because really, there are many. Even my later criticisms should be taken with a grain of salt, because comparison is the killer of objective reviews. For the good, this author continues to prove that one doesn’t need to dumb down one’s writing when working within the romantasy or fantasy romance genres. This seems like it should go without saying, and yet. The prose was tight, lyrical, and suitably adult for the heavy topics the story was covering.

I will say, however, that the magic system, while very interesting, is still very confusing. I’m not always a big fan of glossaries or additional information included at the end, but a more laid-out explanation that could be referenced would have been helpful here, especially since the author introduced even more to an already complicated system. And, while I appreciated the map in the beginning of the book, it was notably leaving out some very important locations that are pretty central to the story, so I wish that had been expanded upon as well.

Beyond that, I appreciated the careful work the author put into her main character. Nore’s arc is not an easy one to write. She’s a woman who has been manipulated her entire life and is very much gaslit about her role in the world and her relationship with her mentor. This is fairly obvious to the reader right from the start. So it can be frustrating to watch Nore behave in some fairly unlikable ways due to this brainwashing. However, the book wouldn’t have the emotional climax it does or hit nearly as hard had Nore somehow been more aware of her circumstances. Indeed, her naivety is essential to demonstrate the challenges that those in abusive, manipulative relationships like this face, as well as those who hope to extract them from them. The author does a great job of carefully building up Nore’s history through a series of flashbacks that neatly illustrate how she’s come to where she is. From there, the book moves through her slow awakening to the reality around her.

But, like I said, this doesn’t make her a particularly fun character to read about. For a character who is meant to be a master spy, I wish we had seen more competence from her in the few moments that she is given to operate independently (though this restriction is also part of the manipulation, so I’m not sure how well it would work). So it’s easy enough to set aside some of the frustrations with her naivety in this area.

However, the romance was incredibly frustrating. I enjoy second-chance romances, but they are hard to write. And here we had a good example of where it can go wrong. The story plays out skipping between the present, where Nore and Caspien have been forced to work together after years apart following some terrible betrayal in the past that has left them both hating one another. This hatred seems to go both ways, though we see more from Nore, of course, as we’re reading the story from her perspective. Interspersed with this are flashbacks to their past in which they fall in love and eventually marry. So, we don’t get to the actual betrayal until nearly the 50% marker in the book. This leaves a lot of time to really build up this betrayal as fairly massive. And when we get to it…man, it really fell with a thump. Both characters, but mostly Nore, react so instantaneously and so poorly that I was immediately frustrated and annoyed. For characters who have been in love for years and happily married for a good chunk of that, the switch to immediate hatred with no room for explanations just read as ridiculous at best, and unlikable at worst. Nore, in particular, comes across as incredibly hypocritical in this scenario.

Now, once the romance starts building back up in the present timeline, I did enjoy these two together. Nore was at her best in the scenes with Caspien. And while he wasn’t my favorite love interest ever, I was fully on board with Caspien pretty much from the start. Between this book and the first (where the emotional stakes at least were much more known by both characters, even if they didn’t admit them to each other), I think it’s fair to say that this author has an incredible way with writing romances between two characters who are in love already to some extent. This is a pretty rare talent, as there’s often a reason that romance authors just end the book once the characters have acknowledged their feelings, usually at the very end of the story. However, I don’t think the enemies-to-lovers bit worked as well here, unfortunately.

We do get to see more of Locke and Kier and man, I was so happy when they showed up. Unfortunately, Locke’s presence did expose more of my frustrations with Nore, as even the small bits we get from Locke were so much more compelling than much of Nore had been for much of the story. Kier was also wonderful, and the little snippets of their love story were so sweet.

On a final note, I think the pacing of this one was also a bit off. The first book was also on the slower side, but this one really dragged in the middle. Part of this was the frustration in having to wait so long for the reveal of what went wrong in the past (and then the disappointment when it came). But there were also a lot of slower travel scenes and bits that felt drawn out past their usefulness. I think a decent amount of paring down in this middle section would have made the entire book a tighter, more enjoyable read.

That said, this was still incredibly well written, and, while frustrating at times, I appreciated the unique arc that Nore traveled. The romance was at its best in the second half of the story, and I was happy to get to spend more time with Locke and Kier. While this didn’t quite live up to the high that was the first book, I still enjoyed it and am excited to see what comes next!

Rating 8: While this didn’t quite live up to the high that was “The Second Death of Locke,” this was still an incredibly well-written fantasy romance with a lovely second-chance romance at its heart (though you do have to wait a bit for it!)

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Thief and the Traitor Bride” can be found on this Goodreads list: Gothic Fantasy (not sure I would put it here, but oh well!)

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

Book: “The Art of Charming a Changeling” by Sylvie Cathrall

Publishing Info: Orbit, August 2026

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

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

Book Description: On her first day working in the prince’s galleries, art conservator Florrie Hyverfell discovers that the most famous portrait in the collection is not only a fake-it’s also inhabited by Vern, a fairy trapped in the forged painting.

Tracking down the stolen original is the only way for Florrie to save her job and for Vern to escape his canvas. Yet as they journey to a famed fairy museum to find the missing artwork, Florrie finds herself taking more than an art historical interest in the changeling painting’s charming inhabitant.

Review: I know Cathrall’s first duology was a bit hit or miss for some fantasy readers, with people sometimes falling off the slower pacing and verbose style of writing. But I really enjoyed it, especially the epistolary format and the creative world-building that expanded in truly wild directions by the time the entire thing came to a close. That being the case, I was excited to pick up another book by this author, especially as this one seemed to have the trappings of a Regency romance novel as well!

It didn’t quite hit the same highs as the other duology, but I’ll go more into that later. But what it did do right, it did very well. From the start, I remembered why I enjoyed this author’s prose. She has a flowing, whimsical style that somehow elevates these sorts of “day in the life” cozy fantasy novels into a place where I am less likely to get bored. This is obviously a subjective point, but I often struggle with cozy fantasy novels that don’t have much plot balancing things out. And like those, this is very light on the plot. There are pages and pages where not much really happens, but because the author’s style of writing is so lovely, I was more than happy to just sit back and go at this more languid pace.

However, some readers may struggle here if they don’t connect with the writing as well. This is definitely one of those books where the author uses twenty words when one is only needed, and the plot is truly secondary to pretty much everything else going on on the page.

I also really enjoyed the main character, the love interest, and the cast of side characters we met along the way. The main character especially was incredibly sympathetic and compelling, nicely balancing a desire to do the right thing with her own struggles with her role in this kerfuffle and her larger artistic ambitions. The love interest was also lovely, though his niceness also left him feeling a bit one-dimensional at times. As the story went on, more depth was given here, but I did at times wish for a bit more spark beyond the simple golden retriever energy he was giving off. The side characters were also very good, for the most part. There was a cousin, Chary, whom I actively disliked through most of the story, and I’m not sure if that was intentional on the author’s part.

As I mentioned above, while the style of writing carried this book for me, I do think there were a few things missing here that were in the first duology. For one thing, the format in the first book, with characters exchanging letters back and forth, better played into this wordy style of writing. It added a little “oomph” to the proceedings, for lack of a better word. Here, there were times where even I began to struggle with the glacial speed of the plot and the detailed descriptions of almost everything.

Further, I also think that the world-building and general mystery of the first duology also better held up this pacing/style-of-writing issue. There, even if the plot itself wasn’t moving quickly, the reader was constantly learning new things about this world and being fed new little tidbits to piece together the mystery at the heart of that story. This book follows a much more traditional questing plot and is set in a fairly familiar fantasy world, so the slower moments didn’t have these extra bits to fall back on when things began to drag.

That said, I still very much enjoyed my experience with this book. Even with my quibbles, I enjoyed this cozy fantasy much more than I typically do with other books in this subgenre. However, much of this came down to my appreciation of this style of writing, and that might be hit or miss for some readers. If you enjoyed her first duology, though, I think there’s still a good chance you’ll like this book too!

Rating 8: A bit on the slower side, but I still enjoyed my time with this one!

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Art of Charming a Changeling” isn’t on any Goodreads lists currently, but it should be on Cozy Fantasy Romance reads.