charliauthor's reviews
531 reviews

Disclaimer, this was my first outing with Ms Hazelwood so I had no preconceptions about her stories as I've heard some people have due to her apparent formulaic way of writing romance.
If however, all her books are the same, then sign me up for some tropey trops baby cause this was really fun!

I cackled, giggled, belly laughed and sniggered all the way through this book and while there were some things I would have preferred in regards to the MMC, it was overall a nice fluffy read with some decent smut.

The best thing I found about Bride was the voice of the FMC, Misery. I found it hilarious seeing the world through her eyes and watching her deal with emotions since she's a vampire and never really had to. In comparison, Lowe, the MMC is all about the feels and while it is sweet, I did wish he was a little more feral as his werewolf status would have you believe. He was just a little too nice for me.

The worldbuilding was minimal but I was ultimately fine with this because of the straightforward nature of the story. It wasnt meant to be anything deeper than it was, the eco system and socio political set up of their infrastructure wasnt made a big deal simply because it wasnt meant to be. We were here for the romance and that served in a very neat and digestable way.
I quote liked how clinical Misery was throughout because it just made everything else that much funnier.

With the smut, I had no issue with the knotting stuff. Its really not that big a deal and ended up being quite sweet lol there wasnt however as much smut as I expected and was all meshed together at the end which was a little disappointing. I know its fiction but Lowe was also a little...fast. Like was he experienced or not? I wasnt quite sure lol

Overall, I enjoyed and would pick up Ali Hazelwood again if I needed a little pick me up.

DNF at 38% because im clearly not intelligent enough for this.

What was interesting and clever about book 1 just became repetitive and confusing in this one with no obvious reason why any of this was taking place. I listened to this and while I was influenced by the narrator for Parisa and her irritating voice, there was just nothing else of substance to keep me invested.
I quite like Parisa in the beginning but she just became even more of a mean bitch the longer i listened to her and there wasnt any real reason why. Yes, coping mechanisms  or whatever but there was just no need to be this way endlessly if it didnt serve a purpose to the story or her powers etc.
Lets not even get started on the powers because she doesnt really explain any of them. Yes, we had explanations in book one but where was the growth of those powers. How were they used day to day, offensively, defensively. It was all just very vague and i was just over it.

DNF'd at 76% even though it really hurt me to do so but I just couldn't continue being so incredibly bored!

I'd heard bad things about this book from others but one shining light was another friend who really enjoyed it. I trust her judgement so I thought cool, maybe I'll be of the 1% in this case. Dear God was i not of that percentile! I just couldn't get into it at all and even with only 100 or so pages to go and being part of a readalong, I had no urge to ever pick it up. When a book feels like a chore, its time to say goodbye.

So, this is set in a world with an epic map and very little else. There are things called Spindles that are like portals I think and they can open into other worlds. One world in particular had overly tall immortal people come out of it one time, but then the portals shut and they were stuck in this new world so they would like to get back home. Anyway, some bad dude opens the portals and brings an undead army with him and of course this is bad so they need a special sword and special blood to kill him even though while in possession of said sword and said blood, they didn't kill him the first time. Aaaanyway, this prompts an immortal and an assassin and a squire and a princess to go on a hunt for the blood and the sword and theres where i lost it.

Despite all the above, absolutely nothing happens and you have no connection to any of the characters. There are too many POVs - 6 - and 4 of them are travelling together! So you read the same scene from different perspectives a lot, that serve no real furthering of the plot and its booooring.

While the map is gorgeous and there was some real potential for this, it just didn't live up to the expectation that the map gave. I commented in our group once that the map had more personality than any of the characters and how that happens, I have no idea. Its like the map was created and then she just threw some randos in there to have a reason to walk around.
Very disappointing indeed.

DNF at 76% because it was just not interesting.

This was a very interesting concept about the forgotten sister of King Arthur which I found intriguing but nothing about the actual story actually lifted off the page for me in anyway for this to be interesting or engaging or exciting.

We all know varying tales of Arthur and his knights and Merlin and Guinevere etc., so it was nice to see these characters in a different light i.e. from a different perspective but it just wasn’t exciting enough to warrant any real investment. The pacing was too slow so I wasn’t sure what we were trying to achieve. There were too many names, too many strings of plot that didn’t amount to anything and then the magic that was there wasn’t particularly appealing or seemingly well thought out.

There was little to no romance which again is fine. It’s not a necessity but I tend to lean on romance when other aspects of a plot or characterisation or world building is lacking so when there was no romance it just continued to get more boring. 

At one point, there’s a baby switching scandal that I’m still not sure why it was done because we don’t discuss it much again. There’s somebody switching magic that I don’t know why she’s done it. There was a blood magic book that she was able to read and I don’t actually know how or why she was able to read it. There was some incest that noone cared about so it was just constant confusion with no drama or action or engagement and it was just not pulling me in enough to continue or see how it ends because there was nothing for me to care about ending. 

Thanks, to netgalley for the arc, but this was not for me. 

I really enjoyed this! Very easy read with likeable enough characters and a hot MMC.
I was invested the whole way through but it gets mid marks cause it was almost too easy. Very predictable stuff but with the right edge of profanity and smut, i really dug it.

Freya is born with a drop of blood given to her by the Gods at birth. This can happen to anyone from various gods which was a cool concept but Freya's gift is hidden because a prophecy says her magic will be used to make someone king of their lands.
When her magic is discovered, she is taken by the man who wants to use her to be king along with his hot son, Bjorn. The books is basically Freya trying not to jump Bjorn's bones or pop of at the mouth when she has no business doing so!

This books is hilarious. Its not meant to be this funny of course but i really enjoyed Freya's instalust. It made for some great reading and serious chuckles on my part. Bjorn was a great MMC and was carrying a lot of the scenes on his shoulders but the overall worldbuilding as a great addition and i'd be excited to get back to this world in its sequel.

As mentioned, a lot of the reveals were expected but as i dont think this was trying to be deeper then it needed to be, this worked well enough for me.
The smut was doooope in my opinion. a bit of delayed gratification at the start but the teasers and then final boink fest was well worth the wait hehe

Defo pick this one up for something easy going and if you dont expect to much, you might even have a lot more fun than I did lol 

One of my most anticipated reads for 2024 is now complete and while it was not the absolute desolation i had anticipated, it was a wonderfully atmospheric, intense and dark(ish) fantasy read that I always enjoy. 
Being back on the road with Gabe and Dior was always going to be a treat and I really enjoyed their blossoming relationship and the introduction of some other interesting characters.

While a bit repetitive in parts - the hill Gabe dies on/the fucks he doesnt give/his distaste for religion etc. - there were still so many quotable parts of this that I really really loved. JK has such an incredible way with words that always makes me happy to find something special to take note of.

A big thing about my rating not being a 4 - other than the lack of complete devastation for me - was that i listened to a lot of it on audio book and missed so much! This therefore isnt necessarily a criticism of the book then but instead the narration. Not all books are made for audio and this is one of them. I didnt much like the two voices, thinking they didnt match the characters as well as they could have done. I liked it best when they were speaking Scottish and Irish but others left a little for the imagination.

As ever, hard to talk about sequels if you've not read the others but the revelations I did enjoy were:

Lioness Phoebe being a real girl. I was so here for hte lion/lioness aspect and really enjoyed their relationship. I kept holding on for Astrid not really being dead but this was just as good. I liked that she was more realistic about how to move on from romantic heartbreak and i found this realistic and beautiful. 
I was absolutely devastated when Phoebe's husband was revealed to be the wolf that the Dyvok were stealing blood from in order to be more powerful. I really felt for Gabe as you can tell how much he really liked Phoebe and I wanted them to be a thing if not to get more smut in the last book lol
I was sad when Dior died but more so for Gabe's reaction to it after her calling him Papa more than her actual death since it was kind of made clear from the start that she was going to die. If I had read this rather than listened, i may have been more broken but as it stands, i was kind of robbed of that emotional reaction.
I was annoyed by page 235 namely because others had gassed up Aaron's turning so much that I expected more from the page. When it was simply that he was Dead, it didnt ring that deep.
Now, it may say a lot about my mental state and love of Dark Romances, but i really liked Nikita 
 and thought he was incredibly hot. His treatment of Aaron was wrong on so many levels but when Aaron started telling Baptiste about how he'd been bent like a pretzel by him...i kinda loved it LOL 

Overall, I still enjoyed it but there were very few moments that I didnt see coming or even when I didnt, they werent as impactful. Despite this, I love the writing, i love the world and I love Gabriel. Celene was a great addition but I am still a little annoyed by he antagonism towards Gabe because I dont think its warranted.
Despite clearly being a 'filler' book, its not a bad sequel and I am very interested to get to book 3 with that dope cliffhanger.

Overall, this book is very intelligent and clever and i loved the rhetoric, tone, questioning nature of it by way of the why, how and ifs of the world. Blake has crafted a world of morally grey and powerful characters that all have a depth and scope to them that i found very entertaining. 

The Atlas Six is about a secret society recruiting 6 remarkable magical individuals to their order through some dodgy means. The 6 in question are layered, interesting and at times quite terrifying which i thoroughly enjoyed. 
What i didnt love as much was the lack of answers where they could have easily been given. By easily, i dont mean spoon fed but just that after the 50th existential question of life, i needed to know the answer and they were purposefully held back which became a tad irritating. The reveals that did occur however were tantalising enough that i will continue the series, there just could have been more (for me) in the way of active power use rather than pages of theory. 

The worldbuilding was sufficient, the magic system believable in its marriage with science which was great. It showed real research and control of the content which i respect very highly.

While not entirely a surprise the overall villain was a good enough pull to continue and learning more about the characters and the scope of their powers is definitely appealing. 

Surprisingly there was a little romance/heat in this. Not smut per se but its very much an “adult” book which was sooo refreshing after the mundanity of some recent YA. 

If you like good prose, structure, dialogue and intrigue then this would be a good fit. 

Structural issues and some problematic jokes against marginalised groups