This was my pick for the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge - Indie Press Book. This is not a book I would have picked up on my own without the challenge, so that makes me happy I completed it!

Archivist Wasp thinks she is special. She killed the last Archivist and assumed the ceremonial knife and the duty of recording the memories and details of the various ghosts she captures. She knows one day she will be killed by one of the Upstarts waiting in the wings. She and her fellow villagers live a harsh life, and they wish to know more about the past and when things changed. Wasp is not a rule follower; she is often in trouble and fears for her life daily. One particularly cruel day, she encounters a ghost different than any she has ever seen before, who asks her for a favor. With nothing to lose, Wasp leaves behind the physical world and journey's with the ghost of a super soldier.

This book is so strange. I had trouble getting invested in the story as it is often slow and doesn't always fully explore the odd world Kornher-Stace has built. It is quite poetic, but there is hardly any dialogue. I don't agree with the YA classification of this novel, as I think it would be better placed in the adult Sci-Fi/Fantasy collection. It would take a pretty intrepid teen to take this one on.

An excellent audio book to listen to while on a road trip. Gaiman does a marvelous job narrating and I enjoyed his take on Norse Myths. His Thor is quite different from Marvel Thor and closer to the Thor from one of my favorite shows, The Almighty Johnsons. That show gave me the bug to take a deeper dive into Norse mythology, check it out if you haven't seen it!

I wrote down a few of my favorite "vocabulary words" so I thought I'd share:

Fimbulwinter - never ending winter preceding Ragnarok
Jorgmungundr - Midgard serpent (also subject of one of my favorite paintings at the Milwaukee Art Museum)
Sleipnir - eight-legged horse, ridden by Odin, son of Loki and
Svadilfari - horse used to help build a wall to keep giants out
Yggdrasil - world tree

A new dating app that allows women to rate NYC's most eligible (or in many cases most in-eligible) bachelors threatens to ruin Reed McMahon's PR career.
Fearing that if a PR genius can't even fix his own reputation, Reed agrees to take on a pro-bono client, connecting him with a sexy, tattooed librarian named Darcy.
Darcy's been secretly following the too good looking Reed on Bad Bachelor, but can't understand why she is so wildly attracted to someone who is her direct opposite in every way. But as we know, opposites attract and sometimes lead to the best HEAs.

As a librarian myself, I found the details about Darcy's career, her library's financial struggles, and her dedication super spot on. London obviously has some experience or know's someone in the field! I loved that she didn't change her personality or looks for Reed and loved how these two polar opposites totally fell for one another.

There are a few surprises, including who is actually running this dastardly app, which I hope will be explored in further books in this series! Looking forward to reading more.

Hayden and Brent's best friends are getting married, creating the perfect situation for these two polar opposites to attract. Brent, a ginormous and outgoing explosives expert, and Hayden, a frosty rich girl with a hidden desire for control, finally come together after a night of escalating dares, both stunned by their chemistry.

But, their opposites may prove to be too much to overcome, as both question their feelings and Hayden struggles to choose between her happiness and a loveless arranged marriage that is needed to save her beloved father's company.

Tessa Bailey is the queen of dirty talking heroes, and this audio book is so freaky steamy. I loved it. Sometimes the story veered towards the ridiculous and the ending happened a bit too neatly, but with this level of heat, who really cares. I adored how Hayden and Brent took turns being "in control" in the bedroom, well, wherever they ended up (who knew hallway bench sexy times could be so fun)!

I'm ready for anything Bailey writes!

With such blurbs as "The Other Woman will have you questioning her on every page, in the most addictive thriller you'll read this year" and "Fiendishly clever with a twist you will not see coming," I dove into this ARC straightaway.

Yikes. What a gross, uncomfortable read. Takes gas-lighting to a whole other level. With a slate of characters you can't help but hate, including the main character, this will definitely get your book group talking but be prepared to feel kind of yucky reading it.

This will definitely be popular with readers who love the challenge of a "twist."

Thank you to the publisher for an ARC.

Matthias, a ridiculously rich, handsome, powerful, and secretive man who is connected with the same agency as Book 1 in this series, is hired to track down the sole-survivor of a college massacre that left his half-brother dead.

Kayla, now a waitress with a new name, has been on the run since the massacre. People believe she may have killed all of her roommates, but she was cleared, legally at least. She's suspicious of the delicious hottie in the suit who claims to be in town for 'business,' so out of place in the greasy spoon cafe she works at, but is also tempted by his interest in her.

As the cat and mouse game between them grows, so does their attraction. Matthias finally comes clean, but the true reason he was hired to find her threatens to hurt them both.

I like these books, but I find the heroes to be a bit too similar. Appearance, mannerism, and all very taciturn. The heroines are what makes these fun.

A promising start to a new series featuring sexy cops (male and female, yay) who work together on an elite undercover detective squad in Atlanta.

After Sawyer's partner is brutally murdered by a drug gang, he is dreading working with someone new. To make matters even worse, his new partner is Brooke, the sexy as hell woman he recently had a the best sex of his life with during what he thought would be a one night stand.

Relationships between partners are strictly forbidden, and Brooke is determined as hell to not let her fling with Sawyer ruin her new job with HEAT.

The joke's on both of them when they are assigned an undercover mission at a local strip club in the hopes of busting the gang responsible for Sawyer's partner's death. And no, it's not Brooke who'll be donning the glittery thong...

Sawyer's sexy routines and Brooke's role as his obsessed groupie make keeping their "hands off" promise a bit hard to keep and stands to ruin the investigation.

I've been on a roll with edgy, sexy-cop thrillers lately (mostly Tessa Bailey), so this was fun to meet a new author. I adored the premise and can't wait to read more about the rest of the partners. I thought Sawyer was super hot, and the scene where he practices for his stripper audition with Brooke was whoa.

What kept me from LOVING this book was some pacing issues. I wanted more comedy, stripping fun times, and a bit less of the angsty "dead partner," evil crime lord, kidnapping, dead grandma business. Brooke also felt a little one-dimensional.

Thank you to Avon for the ARC!

A young-ish (twenty something maybe) woman with the ability to tap into a magical power just wants to keep her land and her house, but is drawn into a war when she rescues a young spy who is more than he appears to be.

Jasminda, who's father came from Lagamiri and who's mother came from Elsira, the two countries separated by a magical force that may be breached by an evil force, does not fit in anywhere. Her skin color and magical powers make her a "grol," a derogatory term for full-blooded Lagamiri, but her Elsiran blood make her also not fit in with the Lagamiri refuges trying to escape their evil over-lord. Her mother's family is trying to cut off all ties and her father and the rest of her family is dead. All Jasminda has left is her farm, but has suddenly and suspiciously been given a high tax she can only pay if she signs papers to cede all rights to her mother's name and family. Hmmmm...

Plus, her home has been invaded by a troop of soldiers who have captured a spy. A very good looking young man spy. A spy who Jasminda is drawn to help. A spy who may be oh so much more.

The book had me up until the point we found out who Jack was. Then the book took a decidedly different tone and turned into more of a romance novel, which I'm fine with, but also felt like a bit of a different read. Everything from that point felt rushed and a bit unexplained, and I wanted so much more explanation.

A different reviewer said this is supposed to be set in an "alternate 1920s" period, which I guess I understand now that I've seen it, as there are phones, "air ships," guns, and other powered, modern items, but it also didn't really feel that way while reading it.

What really worked for me was the discussion of race and racism in this fictional universe. That made it feel really like the 1920s, or at least post-American Civil War, just with different names for the North and South.

The romance was pretty swoony at times, but also infuriating. Since the characters were a bit older than teenagers, they felt a bit 'too old' to be acting some of the ways they did, but also not old enough to be acting other ways, if that makes sense? This feels more like a "New Adult" book which may be confused for YA, kind of like Sarah J. Maas's A Court of Thorns and Roses series. (FYI there is described sex on the page a few times which I liked, but others who look at the cover and think YA may not).

I read an interview given by L. Penelope and I will definitely be reading her next work. I think this one, adapted from a previously self-published work, has great bones so I think with time and maturity her writing will only improve!

An intriguing start to what looks like a series, per the Goodreads description (but based on the reading I'd say this can also stand-alone). The world building was okay, I just wanted more.

First things first. I have bought approximately fifteen copies of this book for the library I work at. It is hugely popular, we can barely keep copies on the shelf. I picked it for the "Book to Art" book club program I lead and made the mistake of being influenced by it's popularity and by the pretty, innocuous looking cover. I DID NOT READ THE BLURB. Oops.

Spoiler alert and trigger warning, there are two graphic rapes in the first eighty pages.

The cover is widely misleading. This is a depressing historical fiction tale set during WWII and after, told in alternating third person narratives by three narrators. Two are based on historical figures. Herta, a German Nazi "doctor" who performs horrific medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners and Caroline Ferriday, an American socialite who's war-time charity work eventually transforms into a campaign to assist the survivors of these medical experiments. Kasia is an amalgamation of real survivors of the Ravensbruck concentration camp medical experiments, women called "rabbits."

I understand the impact and importance of the story, I just didn't want to read it, found it graphically disturbing, and a slog to read. The different POVs are inconsistent, and I'm in no mood to be in the mind of a Nazi or to even feel one hint of sympathy for her plight, even if she is raped by her employer who forces her to sew condoms before he assaults her. What the actual f.

The book is entirely focused on the "rabbits" who are almost entirely made up of Polish Catholic women, women who were political prisoners. Not sure how I feel about that right now.

I enjoyed the post-war portion of the story far more than the first half, as most similar books end with the war. I appreciated Kelly showing that while America was moving on, tired of hearing "sad stories," the rest of the world was still traumatized and barely recovering, especially places under the Iron Curtain.

I'm also growing tired of the world considering books like this "literature" because of the historical context. If it isn't depressing and horrific, it can't be worthy, right? Forget it. I'm back to my HEAs.

Story Brooks has gone from being dumped by her fiancee to being made to orgasm in under a minute by the handsome, sexy stranger who turned out to be her sick father's work protege in ONE DAY.

NYPD hostage negotiator Daniel Chase, an avowed ladies' man, can't believe he's fallen so hard and so fast for his mentor Jack's daughter. The same mentor who made him promise to keep his hands off, a promise he broke only a few hours after making it.

Both Daniel and Story struggle against very real fears and hangups while they make their way to their HEA.

So. Damn. Hot. Wow. Daniel is probably my favorite thus far in this series. I mean, seriously. I also loved how consensual everything was, how Daniel worshiped Story and helped her find her orgasm. I mean, the woman was engaged for years and her fiancee never went down on her?! What?!

Mild spoilers ahead.

I also really loved how the major conflicts in this book revovled around Story potentially being on a massive rebound, her needing to find herself and figure out what SHE wanted, not what all the men in her life told her she wanted. I also loved that it wasn't Daniel who made the big mistake that led to their parting before their final HEA. I too would have been righteously mad at my dad!