books_ergo_sum's Reviews (933)

A heartwarming lady blue alien + lady human romance set in my favourite comfort series universe, Risdaverse? All the yes. Give me some alien-human culture clash and a velvety blue-skinned coochie. This was short, sweet, and sexy.

But I wish it had been dual POV. And there was the dreaded novella time jump during some of the flirty-flirty dating part of the romance. No flirting off-page! I want it all.

I read this standalone novella in one sitting with a big dumb grin on my face. The writing was perfect and it squeezed my heart to bits.

The set up: a re-meeting between a widowed beauty and her childhood neighbour—who’s been crushing on her so hard his entire life that he can barely function.

I loved that he was younger, loved that he was a nerdy rake, loved how they were both hot and knew it, and I love love LOVED how absolutely stupidly in love he was. Seriously, his big feels were making him such an idiot 😂

It was short, it was steamy, it was a great time. 10/10 would recommend.

Have you ever wanted the epic-ness of an adult fantasy romance but also the bonkers-ness of some weird alien peen? Because I found it 🥰

Like an adult fantasy romance, this had an alien rebel prince, a corrupt kingdom, a gladiator situation, escape attempts, and lots of sexy sparring lessons… it wasn’t called that (there were alien words for prince, kingdom, gladiator), but it was basically that. And I was here for it!

Also, it was 600 pages—in a ‘this could have been a very fast-paced fantasy duology' kind of way.

On the bonkers alien romance side, we had some *interesting* alien anatomy. I loved how this particular alien-human difference had our hero PANICKING meanwhile our heroine was more like YES GAWD 🥵

Plus the sci-fi world building was excellent. No corners were cut—there weren’t any futuristic language auto-translators, space travel took years, and there were lots of interesting details to the alien culture. There was just a consistency and believability to this world that sucked me into the story.

And the character writing—it wasn’t just amazing characterization, it was a psychological case study. There were moments where it felt like I was reading No Exit by Sartre (“Hell is other people”). All the side characters were so well developed, there was just such a deep understanding of human nature going on in here.

And this heroine! If we were picking fantasy teams, I would absolutely pick her first. She was so brave and single-minded that her heroism could not be contained. Also, she was legitimately a pyromaniac and being in the POV of someone with a compulsion was fascinating.

I just loved this book!

It’s book two, but they both can be read as standalones. And it felt really different from book one (remember that pet to lovers book I reviewed the other day? 😆) so I’d say read whichever one you feel like.

I loved this so much!! This MM fantasy romance squeezed my heart to bits!!

A bodyguard romance about a starchy, judgy, devastatingly swoony virgin (Evermer) falling for the guy he was protecting (part pampered prince, part sweetheart, part competence kink badass, part so riddled with anxiety and self-doubt that he was genuinely a screw up—Kadou).

But this book was so much more than that. First of all, this fantasy world building was such a specific type—one I’ve been searching for FOR YEARS. Guys, the world building in this book was like The Goblin Emperor 😍 .. If that sentence doesn’t means anything to you, I don’t know what to do.. because The Goblin Emperor, and now A Taste of Gold and Iron, are off trailblazing a completely different style of fantasy world building. Lush and nuanced, so many cultural details (like matronymic-style naming conventions or the frequent use of non-binary gender pronouns çe/çem in this fantasy language), and just this quiet, almost historical romance, feel to the setting.

Was this inspired by Jane Austen? There was the prejudice-y misjudgment between the two MCs, a romance plot I’m obsessed with. If Mr. Darcy judging Elizabeth in Meryton but then squeezing his fist after helping her into a carriage makes you feel feelings, then you are NOT PREPARED for the way Evermer went from thinking Prince Kadou is a silly flake to looking at him with blazing heart-eyes.

Also, the audiobook was really well narrated. Maybe too well narrated? While I was listening to it, I got almost nothing done 😅 It was just me, a paintbrush and/or marker clutched to my chest, heart-eyes, as I listened to these two sweetums feel all the feelings for each other.

This book was very short, more of a short story than a novella. 

I enjoyed it, but I never got sucked into it. Not because a story this short can’t get five stars from me. But because I think that all stories have a length they want to be and I this story would have fit better in a longer format.

Still, love a sexy pining barbarian. And I love that I’m caught up in this series because its first full length novel will be published this summer. Let’s go!

Never have I ever… read a sex scene where the heroine is arguing with her FATHER (who is fully watching everything) while she has sex with the hero??

Now I’ll have to say “I have” 🤣

(“Mount him, daughter..” will haunt me forever)

I’ve been loving the novellas in this Dead Lands series. The Yoda-ish RenFair talk makes me giggle, the magic system is surprisingly good, and the barbarian dongs are enormous.

Also these barbarians would rather eat 🐱 than live—the number of times one of these heroes eats her out while almost dying would make a dangerous drinking game.

This book was so campy. From both the hero and the heroine independently getting stranded on the same deserted island (and her walking in on him 💦 while saying her name) to the heroine being called The Queen Who Rode Her King Into Righteous Battle because she literally rode him (read: his cock) while he was fighting baddies—Kati Wilde is 100% trolling us 😂

I love it, I do! But… we might have sacrificed some of the romance plot for the bonkers-ness in this one. Still, it was fun.

Perfection. No notes.

Literally. I always jot down notes as I’m reading a book, but I read this ARC in a daze of book-excellence and wrote down absolutely nothing. 

I loved:
💙 a secret identity trope that was making me sweat
💙 sex lessons from chapter one
💙 a lovesick fool hero
💙 a horny af heroine
💙 excellent use of epistolary elements
💙 “stay”
💙 god-tier rake reformation
💙 deliciously messy angst

There’s a lot I could gush about in this book. The setting was atmospheric, the plot was anything but formulaic, and the wholesome friendships have me pumped for the series.

But what underpinned all this amazingness, for me, were the characters. They were so well-written, so unique, and so real that I was INVESTED.

How many times have we read the reluctant duke who for some reason has a six pack? But Jack made so. much. sense. Of course he didn’t expect to become a duke—the former duke, his cousin, was a young man newly married. Of course he was a ripped and adventurous scoundrel—he’d made his fortune captaining a ship in the navy. And of course he didn’t want to be the duke—he had history with the dowager duchess, the duchy was off in the wilds of Scotland, and he already had all the status and responsibility he could handle.

And then there was Helen, our Scottish thistle and one of the most unique historical romance heroines out there. She was a Countess in her own right, thank you Scottish inheritance laws. And move over every impoverished peer ever, Helen was over here living in an abandoned castle, not able to afford food to eat, wearing pants, with hands fully callused from all the manual labour she was doing. She was such a moving mixture of heart and determination that my eyes are getting teary just thinking about her 🥲

Holy manic pixie dream girl, Batman.

Here’s the thing—I thought this book would be right up my alley. But this book wasn’t actually for me (though I can theoretically understand someone else enjoying it). I wanted the darkly romantic fairy tale page-turner that’s been compared to The Invisible Life of Addie LeRue…

Except, it was more like Gone Girl meets Peter Pan, in the most ham-fisted way possible 🥴

There was no romance, not even a toxic one. They met, got married, she told him not to ask her anything about herself, he agreed because she was hot, and the "romance” portion was over in the first few pages.

It wasn’t particularly dark. The characters were too cartoonish to be unnerving and the gothic vibes weren’t delivering. The house was less haunted than a Goosebumps novel and besides some casual agism (an old lady, whose body we described in detail, had a few ominous lines) and a dead bird, nothing came of it.

The synopsis also mentioned being mysterious and it could have been. Except—the way the audiobook voiced some of the characters was a MASSIVE spoiler. That, plus the 1,000 hints meant that the final reveal was beyond predictable.

I guess the language was supposed to be beautiful? It was 90% overwrought metaphors and similes. But they were all about fetishized innocence, women’s bodies, and flowers (obviously). And again I blame the audiobook, but the stilted wording, the repetitive imagery, and the full-on melting pot of mixed metaphors all sounded insufferably cringe when spoken out loud. It’s possible it sounds nice when you read it silently in your head, but I couldn’t unhear it.

What was even the plot? It wasn’t character-driven (the characters weren’t well written enough), I personally didn’t enjoy the writing style, and for a book with so little happening, it still managed to leave tons of unanswered questions?

This book is for someone. But the audiobook is for no one—avoid that thing like the plague 😅

A fun free-with-the-newsletter prequel novella.

I enjoyed the language barrier and adventure in this story. And I’m excited for the fated mates of alien guys who thought they would be alone forever setup of the series.

There was a lot to love about the set up of this alien romance series. 
💙 hunky blue-purple aliens
💙 a vibrating tail 😉
💙 heroes calling their human mate “my soul’s breath,” and 
💙 the promised sausage fest of a spaceship entirely crewed by alien dudes who’ve been cast out of their society because they haven’t found their fated mate yet.

The grumpy/sunshine + language barrier + adventure in here was super fun.

That said, I think I’ve discovered a new personal alien romance bugaboo: when the human lady comes from a future or reimagined earth society that knows about aliens/is spacefaring, yet this fact hasn’t altered human culture very much? These ladies were from a 2123 spacefaring human world but it wasn’t reflected in their characters enough, for me.

And then, a kiss of death that has nothing to do with the book and everything to do with my own irrationality—Claimed by the Alien Rogue had not one, but two heist plots. Which I am, for some reason, allergic to 🤷🏻‍♀️

But that won’t stop me from continuing on in the series.