This book was such a beautiful exploration of the world of fungi. I've always found fungi fascinating, and this was a great way of learning more about them. The author's narrative storytelling makes the information presented engaging. The author's interest in the topic at hand resonates through the pages. Personal anecdotes are used throughout the book and permeate through the work, making the learning experience feel more personal. It emulates the experience of listening to a David Attenborough documentary, but in the form of the written word. This is a book I will definitely go back to. Definitely on the list for a reread.

I really love how Maxi is getting to explore her independence more. She spends the first few chapters traveling with Riftan and the knights on a campaign (which he fights her tooth and nail on). However, Maxi proves to be a capable healer. Riftan and Maxi still disagree in terms of what her role should be as a mage and his wife. It is less about whether Riftan respects Maxi in her own right or not and more about how Riftan wants to care for her and ensure her safety. They are separated for a time and are eventually reunited again. Despite all his qualms about Maxi disobeying his wishes, it's clear that Riftan cares very much about her well-being and dreads being separated from her. During the events of the story, he puts his foot down when he has to in order to make sure that Maxi is respected. Both of them hope that this war is over soon. Riftan is looking forward to taking Maxi home and back to safety, and Maxi wishes to be reunited permanently with Riftan and having him return home with her safe and sound. It seems that they will soon be separated once again, but I'm hoping it will only serve to make their relationship stronger. They've grown a lot as a couple over the course of the relationship, but there is obviously still space for them to continue to know each other better.

We finally get to meet Princess Agnes in this installment, the woman that was originally meant to be engaged to Riftan per popular opinion. It's funny seeing Agnes and Riftan interact because it's clear that he is easily irritated by him. There isn't any romantic or sexual tension between them at all. At most there is a mutual sense of respect between them on a professional level, but not much else. Despite this, Maxi isn't put at ease at all by their sense of familiarity between Agnes and Riftan. She spends a good half of the novel dealing with her jealousy and yearning for Riftan's attention. 

Additionally, Maxi and Riftan start having more arguments. All of Riftan's insecurities from the previous book pertaining to being able to provide for Maxi begin coming to a head. Anatol begins to have a need for more mages and Maxi starts offering her assistance in order to help Riftan. Riftan's response is unfortunately to fight her tooth and nail on it. His intention is obviously to protect Maxi as he has deep affection for his wife and he worries for her safety. However, this comes off as domeneering and unreasonable. Personally, I see this conflict between them as a good thing because I believe it is helping each of them grow in their own way. Maxi asserts her feelings of anger and frustration at Riftan's response and in the process, fights for he right to disagree with him. Riftan, despite his stubborness, listens to Maxi and allows her ways to have a say in what she wants to do, even if it irks him. Maxi is slowly proving to both herself and to others, including Riftan, that she is not the helpless noblewoman that she seems to be at a first glance. 

I'm glad Maxi is getting to a place in her character arc where she is comfortable standing up for herself, even against her own husband. Thankfully, despite all of his flaws, Riftan still finds ways to compromise with Maxi and look out for her safety. I'm hoping that they learn to compromise better as the books progress. 

I appreciate the increased character development in this second installment of the series. We see Maxi start becoming more confident as her relationship with Riftan develops. Riftan spends a lot of time reassuring and comforting Maxi. This results in Maxi realizing that she's being given the affection that she has always lacked and yearned for.  At the same time this also bring up a series of insecurities about how stable her relationship with her husband is. Maxi does not share her past with him at all and feels this creates an emotional distance between them despite their mutual growing affection. She also feels the need to prove herself useful to Riftan and his kingdom. This manifests itself as Maxi training with Ruth to develop her affinity for magic. This unfortunately creates a point of contention between Maxi and Riftan as well. It displays some of Riftan's own insecurities about his relationship with his wife. It seems like he is insecure about not being able to provide Maxi the comforts he believes a noblewoman of her status is used to. This is ironic considering that Riftan is a very practical man with very little care for luxury. The conflict between Riftan and Maxi makes the relationship feel more genuine. They are still getting to know each other and their priorities aren't exactly aligning. Riftan is overly protective and has trouble communicating with Maxi in a way that isn't perceived as aggressive at times. Maxi's past abusive childhood exacerbates her anxiety and fear during arguments or disagreements, sometimes to the point of tears. Thankfully, Riftan cares very much about Maxi and her feelings. As a result, he tries to find middle ground with her and apologizes when he feels he has hurt her feelings.  

By the end of this installment Maxi isn't afraid of Riftan, even when he's angry because she understands that his anger is usually coming from a place of concern. She starts to genuinely miss him when he isn't spending time with her. Additionally, we see her feel more confident expressing herself verbally as she practices improving her speech impediment. This newly found confidence is obviously correlated to feeling like she has found a new home. I'm sure this will continue to be explored in the next installment. I'm specifically looking forward to seeing Maxi develop her magic. I really like where the story is going so far and I do recommend reading these novels even if you have already read the webcomic. It helps add a lot of context and you get to see a lot more of Maxi's inner thoughts.

This book felt like reading a forum that was trying to convince me that two characters that are obviously a gay couple, aren't a gay couple. Wes and Jamie spend a lot of time in this novel ignoring the elephant in the room. Both of them clearly love each other very much, even before their relationship developed into mutual sexual/romantic attraction.  Wes carries around a sense of guilt about pressuring his friend into engaging in sexual activity with him when he's always identified as straight. It made me wonder if this is something that members of the queer community feel more often than I thought. I can relate somewhat to the sense of responsibility of not purposefully misleading someone. However, I also think that a lot of obstacles in Jamie and Wes's relationship could have been resolved by communicating more. Although, the miscommunication did not feel forced or misconstrued. It felt like it was something that could reasonably occur in real life. At no point did I think that either of them had concerns that weren't valid.

There is a reasonably thorough exploration within the plot of homophobia and the fears surrounding that in both Jamie and Wes's lives. There is a lot of pressure on them as male professional athletes to be taken seriously and be perceived as masculine. Additionally, they are responsible for child athletes and unfortunately the ignorance of homophobia does not differentiate between parents and everyone else. 

Overall, I enjoyed watching Jamie and Wes reconnect with each other. Outside of respecting each other as friends, they also respect each other as peers and that definitely bleeds into their eventual romantic relationship. Their love for each other helps them find ways to accommodate each other back into their lives. This novel can be read as a standalone, but I plan on continuing to read the sequel. Sarina Bowen is definitely a go to romance author for me now. This is the fourth book I've read by her and her stories never disappoint.

I started reading the web comic for this series first, so none of the events of the story in this first installment were new necessarily. However, I appreciated the extra detail that a narrative form of storytelling provides. I like that the visuals provided in the web comic matched up well to the descriptions in the book of the characters and the scenery.

The setting of this historical fantasy world seems to be inspired by medieval Europe, so it has some Western religious elements within the world. This includes the legitimization of a marriage through the verified consummation between the respective spouses as well as the arrangement of marriages. Riftan and Maxi's relationship is indeed arranged. Because of this, Maxi and Riftan have sex on their first night together so that the arrangement is not annulled. 

Riftan is very direct with Maxi about their marital duties and the initial interaction the night of their feels uncomfortable. Riftan does bring up consent and gives Maxi a choice in the manner, but he seems inpatient about it from Maxi's perspective. Taking into consideratio that their inability to consummate the marriage would make the marriage null, it is understandable that this is stressful for both of them. Unfortunately, Maxi comes from an abusive home, so she prefers the discomfort of sleeping with a complete stranger at this point, than returning to her abusive father. Riftan lacks any of this context, of course, so he tries to complete his end of the bargain quickly in order to maintain the marriage. Riftan has the decency to attempt to attempt some foreplay to make things as comfortable for Maxi as possible. I would say that the story makes it clear that the sex isn't necessarily enjoyable for Maxi, but it is clear that Riftan is resigned to their circumstances and seems committed to the relationship now that they are married.

Riftan is absent for a small portion of the story since he goes on a campaign for 3 years after his marriage with Maxi. This makes for some further awkward interactions once he returns to pick her up from her home in Crosoy Castle. Riftan is a very large and intimidating man. Coming from a home with an abusive male figure, Maxi's response to Riftan is fear. She expects physical and emotional abuse from him, but instead she receives kindness and consideration. She finds this strange and confusing and it's sad that Riftan is the first decent male figure she has had the pleasure of forming an intimate relationship with.  Their trustworthiness between each other is built slowly. It is however, clear, that they find each other sexually attractive reasonably quickly. Riftan does not shy away from flattering Maxi about her beauty. Maxi is more reserved, but we do hear her thoughts as she is thinking about how handsome she finds Riftan. As they get to know each other, Maxi starts to realize that Riftan is protective and kind despite his intimidating appearance. Maxi also begins to worry for Riftan's well-being and it becomes clear to him as well that she is shy, but also kind and loving. They form a tentative emotional intimacy that seem to be the stepping stones to a romance between them.

The perceptions Maxi and Riftan have of each other are both mistaken and inaccurate. Riftan perceives Maxi as being a rich and spoiled noblewoman. It is implied that he believes that she married a man beneath her station. He tries to make up for it by attempting to make sure that she is comfortable and offers her all the luxuries he believes her to have had in her father's home. Nothing could be further from the truth, but because Riftan is none the wiser, he spends the first few interactions with Maxi apologizing for the discomfort he is subjecting her to. The book ends on a cliffhanger, but I'm looking forward to seeing how Maxi and Riftan's relationship continues to develop in future installments.

As a side note, I feel this book illustrates the discrimination that may have been suffered by people with disabilities historically reasonably well. Maxi has a noticeable stutter and the book makes it clear that she has been abused by her father in part due to her disability. Maxi has been hidden away from society and perceived a woman unfit to be married off. As a result, Maxi suffers from self-confidence issues. She sees herself as defective because of her stutter which contributes to her lack of self-worth. This becomes apparent mostly through her conversations with Riftan that come up about getting a divorce. She expects that someone like him would not someone with a disability, so she assumes that he has come back from his 3 year campaign ready to divorce her. It's very clear that Riftan does not see her as less due to he disability. At no point in time does he mock her for her stutter. He listens to what she has to say and treats her as an equal. It's nice to see that she has at least found someone who values her the way she should have always been valued, as a human being. Again, looking forward to continuing to see their story progress.

I don't usually gravitate towards age gap relationship romances in particular, but this one was a favorite. Love interests Liam and Sadie briefly know each other years before the story begins when she was his babysitter and he was a young teenager. The fact that Sadie knew him when he was underage would usually be a red flag for me if not for the fact that they haven't seen each other in 10+ years. It is clear based on their conversations about that time that Sadie only saw him as what he was at that time, a child. There clearly wasn't any inappropriate behavior on her part. Therefore, it's not as strange to me that they begin a sexual relationship now that he is almost 30 and their age gap is only about 5 years. Liam has always had a crush on Sadie, but a teenager having a crush on an adult isn't the most novel occurrence.  Additionally, Sadie and Liam are equals by the time they meet again, so the age gap itself is no longer problematic the way it definitely would have been when Liam was a child (that would indeed be pedophilia and grooming at that point). I think there is a lot of commentary within the story about the stigma within age gap relationships where a woman is older that I also appreciated. I think it's important to take context into consideration. Age gap relationships are not inherently bad, but it depends on the power dynamic, the age difference, the respective ages of both parties, etc.

Liam is also just immediately likeable. He's great with kids, selfless, and kind. He goes out of his way to support Sadie with her kids. Additionally, he is willing to sacrifice his time and energy for her without the expectation of a sexual or romantic relationship. Sadie and Liam also have similar priorities, such as putting the well-being of her children first. Liam is completely willing to go bat on Sadie's behalf. One of my favorite scenes in the book is Liam establishing boundaries with Sadie's ex-husband, Decker, in order to protect the well-being of her children. They are also both very good at respecting each other's boundaries within their romantic/sexual relationship. It makes sense that they would make such a great couple with how compatible they are. This has probably been my favorite out of the books in this series I have read so far. I'm looking forward to enjoying the next book in the series when I get a chance.

The romantic relationship in this book has reasonably fast pacing, which makes sense since Tom and Brynn's relationship starts as a one night stand. After being treated as dispensable by her ex-husband, Tom in comparison is selfless and caring with Brynn. They have fun together and both of them have healthy platonic relationship with their friends. A lot of the interactions with the side characters were as fun and entertaining as those between Brynn and Tom. Tom is super fun on his own when he's on the page. He's flirtatious, but respectful. He's gregarious and he lights up a room when he walks in. He was very easy to like from the get-go. Brynn is also funny. Her inner monologues especially were humorous and entertaining.  This novel was short, but fun all the way through. I'm looking forward to continue reading more works by this author. This is the second book I've read by them and they have yet to disappoint.

This story felt like a bridge between the ending of the original series and the films as was intended. It helped explain how the characters got to where they were by the first Start Trek film after completing their 5 year mission on the Enterprise. I always wondered what series of events would have pushed someone as adventurous as Kirk to take a desk job as an Admiral in the fleet. It's clear by the end of the book that Kirk isn't the only one who has his priorities shifted. There are various changes in both his life and that of his closest friends in the crew that cause that to happen.  Spock and Bones both leave the fleet to pursue ambitions outside of their careers. It feels almost like Spock has left Starfleet in order to reconnect with his Vulcan culture.

Based on this assumption, it makes sense that he would tie himself down to Vulcan via his engagement and his consideration of undergoing Kolinahr.

Mccoy ends up going into retirement after the Enterprise's 5 year mission ends. He wasn't ever the biggest fan of spending long periods of time traveling in space, so this also isn't a surprising decision. Unfortunately, a diplomatic meeting between two alien species gone south disrupts everyone's plans, and these three friends end up having contact with each other again earlier than expected. You follow all three of them separately, so it feels almost like you are following three different subplots that converge into one eventually. I would have liked for there to be more character development for the other characters such as Uhura. However, this isn't a new criticism as this was an issue in the Original series as well. However, you would have thought that they would have taken the creative opportunity in a novel published in the 1990s to expand the roles of the side characters. The story also felt slow at times, but the characters still felt like themselves, which I found comforting. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who is a fan of the original series and wants to go back to the nostalgia of this world. It isn't the most groundbreaking novel in the world, but it does hit the spot for the Star Trek nostalgia.

This was an interesting collection of sci-fi short stories. This is older sci-fi, so it reads like speculative fiction at times. The stories heavily explore the possible dangers of new technology. In the context of time the story was written, it relies heavily on nuclear war to illustrate this. Additionally, there are parallels with our own history with colonization as the Americans from the U.S. take over Mars and decimate the indigenous Martian population in the process. I think this is a collection that would probably be served well by a reread. I'm looking forward to rereading it again in the future. Definitely a must read for any classic sci-fi fan.