But a chance of getting lost, he decided, was better than the certainty of losing James.

trigger warnings: transphobia, misgendering

A fantasy m/m romance with my favourite enemies to lovers trope, between Hook and Peter Pan? NICE.

Peter Darling is both a combination of a sequel, a prequel, and a retelling of the Peter Pan story.
Our beloved Peter is a transman in this version, and escapes once more to Neverland in an effort to be the person he really is, and not who his family think he should be (they really don't seem to be a nice bunch). There he reunites with the Lost Boys, and the adventures start all over. But, it's all a little bit stale for him. Things have changed. There's a truce between the Lost Boys and the pirates, and it's just not as fun as it was the first time around, so he decides to go and make his own fun.

He meets Hook again, and nothing makes him feel more alive, less bored, than every meeting he has with him. That's just because they're enemies and he loves the thrill of the fight, right?
As Peter comes to realise, and as Hook realises before him, Peter just loves the thrill of Hook himself.

The adventure never stopped in this book and it was honestly really fun to read. There was danger at every turn for Hook and Peter, especially between them, beautifully demonstrated by Peter pulling a knife on him when they first kiss. It's scary and new and overwhelming, but it's the most real thing either of them have felt in years.
A little bit too real.

This book was a little too short for my liking, so the jump between them wanting to kill/hate each other, and the exact opposite was just a little too quick for me. It did feel realistic though, and I could see how they would develop feelings for each other. I liked that after they left Neverland, they tried to make a relationship work between them. It was a really sweet read and I love the slight differences Austin Chant made between this and the Pan story everyone knows.

I wish we could have seen more of Ernest and his relationship with Peter, and of the rest of the Lost Boys in general. Despite that, this is a wonderful story.

For a long time, when I was a little younger, I thought that was how every girl saw other girls - this mix between beauty and awe and curiosity, a thin layer of lust just underneath.

trigger warnings: alcoholism, emotional abuse, neglect

Sweet lord, this book utterly struck something within me.

How to Make a Wish follows Grace Glasser, a seventeen year old girl who's never really seemed to have anything permanent apart from her best friend and her love for music. After moving into yet another house with yet another of her mum's less than permanent boyfriends, Grace meets Eva, a biracial girl consumed by grief from the recent death of her mother.
Eva likes girls, always has and always will, and her frankness about it stirs up buried thoughts she's never really had the chance to fully explore. As Eva starts to become a bigger and bigger part of Grace's life, she also becomes a bigger part of her problems, which leads to heavy consequences for everyone involved.

A love story between a lesbian and a bisexual girl with an unexpected happy ending: sign me up.

How to Make a Wish is both heartbreaking and heart making (I know that's not a real thing but).
It's a sweet love story with massive undertones of mental illness from all three of the main females. It's realistic and raw and it made me feel things.

The severe power and responsibility imbalance between Grace and Maggie haunted me a little after I read this. I've been Grace. I've been the girl who had to grow up too quickly, and be the parent to the parent. I related too much to having a parent who seems wonderful on the surface, but is completely different and full of problems in private. I am Grace and that's why I loved this book.
The thing is, I also felt some sympathy for Maggie, and that's just a testament to how good Ashley Herring Blake's writing is. Maggie has ruined parts of Grace's life, has neglected her, but yet I feel almost as sorry for her as I do for Grace.

It's not often I read something I identify with so completely, but that's what this book was for me. Because of that it'll always be special.

"She's a princess and you're a jock," he says. He thrusts his chin toward Bronwyn, then at Nate. "And you're a brain. And you're a criminal. You're all walking teen-movie stereotypes."

One of Us Is Lying is completely and utterly aware that it's characters are stereotypes on the surface. It knows that it's almost a criminal homage to The Breakfast Club. It knows it and it owns it, and then tries to turn it on it's head.

So that's four characters described, but who's the fifth? That would be Simon, a self-described 'omniscient narrator', an outlier and an outcast throughout the entire book, and the victim and catalyst for everything that takes place.
Simon dies during detention, but which of the remaining four characters did it? That question is what this book spends exploring.

Full disclosure, I am that person who figures out plot twists, which this book definitely has. I figured out the ending about halfway through. I figured out the character's journeys almost as soon as they were introduced, but I still enjoyed reading this.

I usually hate stories with multiple POVs, but I liked this one. I liked seeing the different personalities and slowly having their secrets divulged to me. I felt like I was a part of their murder club. I felt like I was on the sidelines in their stories, but I was still right there. This is a book that includes you, and it really was a treat.

This is a book that does take you on a journey, and whilst some of the characters are more fleshed out than others, they still all had interesting stories that I wanted to read more of.

Single Malt follows Aiden 'Irish' Talley, a 42 year old FBI agent still reeling from the loss of his partner of fifteen years and the loss of his husband in the same 'accident', and Jameson 'Whiskey' Walker, a 30 year old rookie who is well known in the public eye due to his days as a basketball player, and is more than he appears to be on the surface.
Aiden and Jamie have been attracted to each other for years, but have never spent considerable time with each other, until they get partnered together, and quickly find themselves falling into trouble, both professionally and personally.

I love cop shows. I watch a ton of them. I love the dynamic between partners and the high stakes and the action. When I heard about Single Malt, I couldn't wait to read it. For me, this book didn't really disappoint. There's action, there's hacking, there's betrayal, and the physically (and possibly emotionally) strongest character of them all is a woman of colour (side note: we didn't see nearly enough of her so I hope this is fixed in the upcoming books).

Single Malt takes place over the span of about four weeks. Aiden and Jamie work together in the cyber division, and after quickly closing a paedophile ring case, and rescuing some kidnapped children, they are assigned to the case which will take up the majority of the series. Essentially, Single Malt is a book about a seemingly bio-terrorist plot, but as Irish and Whiskey uncover, there is more to it than originally seems.
Everything about this book is fast paced (which includes the romance) which made it pretty easy to read. It was definitely enjoyable and fun to follow the investigation and see how at some turns, the main characters were misled. It wasn't particularly easy for them, and that made it slightly more realistic.

Now, the main romance.
Aiden acknowledges his attraction to Jamie, mostly, but thinks he's straight when they're first partnered together. I'm fairly certain he only thinks this as to make it absolutely impossible for them to ever be together. Other characters pick up on the chemistry between them, it's obvious and absolutely there, but because Aiden is still grieving Gabe, and thinks even looking at another man is betraying the memory of him, he's basically seeing what isn't there so he doesn't go after something he thinks he can't have. Things happen though, Jamie outs himself to Aiden, then they're involved in a couple of situations where they almost lose each other, and the flirting and the looks and the attraction building between them leads to more. It feels inevitable. The book was always going to lead to them hooking up, but with the decision that they make at the end (or more like Aiden's idea that Jamie kind of goes along with),

Spoiler

Aiden basically says they should be friends with benefits because he doesn't want to lose another romantic partner he cares about

there's still roadblocks for them which will complicate their partnership in their future.
The scenes between them are pretty hot though, so I'm not gonna complain. I'm fairly certain all the issues between them will be cleared up by the end of Barrel Proof (the third and final book of the series due out in August) and they will be a fully fledged couple at the end, so if possible romantic cliffhangers like this put you off then don't let it in this instance.

I love Jamie. I really really love Jamie, but did anyone else get the feeling that he knew how to do just slightly too much. He's an ex basketball pro, so he has a lot of stamina and strength. He grew up near a NASCAR track, so he knows how to handle cars incredibly well. His family was poor so he had to work in a cafe to make ends meet, so he knows how to cook incredibly well. He aced his classes in college and knows how to hack better than most other hackers. He's gorgeous and smart and charming and understanding. Basically the full package.
Do men like this truly exist? It made it easy to fall for him as a character, but there's definitely secrets lurking under the surface, there has to be. I have a feeling Cask Strength (book number two) might deal with this, which is something I'm definitely looking forward to, but it was just something niggling at the back of my mind whilst I was reading this.

I like that the book ended on a cliffhanger

Spoiler

with Aiden's deceased husband Gabe having ties to the terrorist Renaud aka the Big Bad of the series

and it certainly draws you back in for the sequel, which is luckily due out soon. This book isn't perfect, but it's definitely fun and a great read with a promising plot and romance.

trigger warnings for: rape, self harm mentions, severe emotional abuse throughout

This book absolutely infuriated me.
The blurb doesn't really match the book. This story is all about a woman in an abusive relationship who tries to get out of it (and sometimes stay in it) with the help of her family and the woman she's fallen for. This is not a cutesy fandom book at all and that disappointed me a little.

I honestly think Kerry is possibly my least favourite character out of any book I've ever read. She was well and truly despicable. She had zero redeeming features and I have no idea why Dion was with her, let alone why she was married to her. Making Kerry the bad guy didn't really make me root for Dion and Zoey though, so if that was Glass' intentions then she failed.

Zoey seemed to have the realisation that she was in love with Dion about three times in this book. It made no sense to me at all. I thought I was having deja vu when she kept saying she loved her, but no, she had to keep reiterating it. Then when they finally told each other they loved each other and immediately started with the pet names; it didn't feel real or organic at all. They couldn't go five seconds without saying 'I love you' or calling each other baby. They felt more like teenagers than adult women and it just did not feel believable to me.

I've given this two stars rather than one, because it was a f/f romance with a happy ending and the premise of a writer and artist developing from a professional relationship to a personal one was a nice concept, but this is an overly dramatic and tedious book.

In essence this is a book about the balance between love and acceptance, selflessness and selfishness.

It centers on Luca, who has a mystery illness that essentially means he has weak/dizzy spells, and coughs up blood. We don't really find out a lot about his illness, how it developed, or how he's been coping with it up until the start of the book.
The book quickly gets into him visiting the healer Kin that his father recommended, which is essentially his last hope after six years of not being able to find a cure. Kin and Luca end up falling for each other and start a relationship, which increases the stakes of finding a cure for Luca.

The relationship bordered on instalove a little bit too much for my taste, but it was sweet and the conflict over the possible cure for Luca also felt real.

Speaking of the cure, this book absolutely did not go where I thought it would. I'm not sure if I like where it went or not, but it definitely did surprise me. I kept expecting things to happen, but they never did, and it was a little refreshing to not entirely know where the story would go.

This is a story about family and relationships with the MC's illness being the vehicle to explore connecting and reconnecting with loved ones. Whilst the book may not have gone where I thought it would, or even where I may have wanted it to, it was definitely a refreshing and important look on the choices people can make.

trigger warnings for: transphobia, lesbophobia/homophobia, rape mentions, multiple secondary character deaths, amputation, physical violence, emotional abuse

An #ownvoices novel with a teen trans lesbian superhero protagonist!! Sign me up.

Honestly it was the protagonist that completely drew me to this book, and I have come out the other side adoring Danny.

Dreadnought follows Danny Tozer, a 15 year old transgirl who witnesses the death of Dreadnought, the strongest superhero in her city, and inherits his powers as a result. The story then follows her immediate transition (being given Dreadnought's powers gives her her ideal body), her navigating what it means to be a superhero, and subsequent investigation and battle with the novel's Big Bad.

Dreadnought definitely felt like a decent premise for a comic (and I got the feeling that April Daniels might have a little bit of a preference for Marvel), but it also totally works as a book. I LOVE that trans superheroes are coming to the forefront as central characters, with Alters (again those comic leanings) last September, and now with Dreadnought.

Another one of the strong points of Dreadnought, that I wish we saw more of, was the relationship between Danny/Dreadnought and Sarah/Calamity. I loved that they learned things from each other and that Danny finally had someone in her life who she could trust and be safe with, even if she usually seemed to be in the most danger she'd ever faced with Calamity. Their friendship (though I really wouldn't mind if it developed into more) was definitely one of the most enjoyable parts of the story for me.

I think the world building was good, as were the two ending battles. The idea of Danny being able to see a lattice as part of her powers was interesting to me because I haven't read anything like that before, and I'd love to see Danny exploring her powers a bit more in the future.

One of the reasons why I didn't give this book five stars, is the sheer amount of transphobia and homophobia that Danny experiences. It really really made me uncomfortable, but I know that this is probably realistic. Danny receives it from almost everyone she encounters in the book. After coming out to her friend and rejecting him,

Spoiler

he says he hopes she gets raped, which is frankly disgusting.

Honestly most of the men in this book are absolute garbage, and the ones who aren't as bad as the rest

Spoiler

end up dying

, which ended up making me feel tired and distressed on Danny's behalf.

I also think some parts of the story weren't given enough time, like Danny's interactions with the Legion (I thought they'd play a bigger part), Danny discovering and developing her powers, Utopia's motivations, and some of the secondary characters. Some of these may be addressed later but I'm not entirely sure.

The difference between the majority of the female (I'm including Doc Impossible in this) characters and the majority of the male characters really highlighted how strong the female characters were, and I loved it, but I would've liked it better if Danny had some support from some male characters too, or just more support from the ones who did support her.

Whilst Dreadnought isn't perfect, it is mostly a fun read and I am really looking forward to the sequel which is out this July.

Read this book for Danny (and Sarah).
Read this book for on page trans and lesbian rep, with those words being used multiple times.
Read this book for the ending.

This story follows Carla, a cupid determined on excelling at work and proving herself, and Letta, a succubus looking for true love. Needless to say, they both find what they're looking for/wanting in each other.

This was an incredibly sweet read and was certainly an easy book to get through, with very few obstacles for the characters getting together.

It was great to see demisexual and pansexual representation on page here, especially when this relates to the two main characters, even if those exact words were never used. I particularly liked that Letta was romantic and sought out true love, which went against the stereotypes of her species, and she was definitely the more interesting of the two mains for me. I would love to read this story from her POV and have a little more insight into her.

For me, I wasn't totally enamoured with Carla, and I felt she was a lot more juvenile than Letta. This may be because she was less experienced than Letta, but it just seemed like she had a little bit less personality in general, and was only solely focused on her job. The love story was also a little rushed for me and needed more time to develop, or more indication that it was developing (I know it's a novella but the jump between friendship and more seemed sudden to me).

I think I would have preferred if this story was a little bit longer and fleshed out but it was definitely a sweet, quick read and definitely good representation.

I think this book reviewed itself when the main character said "It’s like one of those bad teenage dramas where the whole plot could be fixed with two minutes’ worth of honest dialogue.”