charliauthor's Reviews (531)

I never thought id see the day when i read a romance book with *shock horror* no romance. 

I actually cant comprehend how this was approved as a “rom com” type with the cover and title etc. because none of them go together. 

Im still not entirely sure what The Boyfriend Project is since 1. Its not explicitly called that at first and 2. The actual pact they make, makes it more a life/goals project then a boyfriend one. 

TBP involves thirty year old high achiever Samiah who is catfished by a guy and when confronting him about it, meets two other women that he was dating alongside her. The three women become friends through the incident and outside of the “positive friendships with women at an older age” element that i adored, the exposure of the catfish was the only exciting part. 

The rest of the book is filled with excessive explanations about working in Tech and lengthy descriptions of her office and every new trendy outlet in the city she lives. It was straight up boring even while skimming the page looking for the juice/romance. 

The MMC is Daniel and even though his Korean/African American look was to DIE FOR, the whole undercover element was dry and not particularly exciting. The writer explained so much about the decor that i didnt even realise he was the focus of his introductory chapter until i realised we werent reading from Samiah’s point of view anymore. It all just meshed into one. 

*sigh* i expected more from this on the cutesy black romance scale and it just didnt deliver in the slightest. Major yawn fest.

While there were some notable scenes that took me by surprise and in some cases genuinely upset me, Thunderhead does unfortunately fall into second book territory and doesnt necessarily live up to the hype of the first book.
Saying this, i did still enjoy this outing with the Scythes and seeing what new atrocities the less than scrupulous scythes could come up with. 
I was rather annoyed with the action being minimal this time round but the switch out for the mid life crisis-esque thoughts of the Thunderhead, were very interesting to consider.
What is consciousness and morality? What makes a person? What makes a person good or evil? Lots of questions brought up about the constructs of and within society which i really enjoyed.
The end keeps you on your toes so you will have to complete the series, but i do feel much of it could have been revealed/explained sooner.
An enjoyable one but hoping that Book 3 really pulls something out of the bag to make it exceptional.

Erm…so this is embarrassing. 

I was sooo excited for this book after the first 3 because i loved them so much but this one just fell really flat.
The bad guy wasn’t bad enough, the links to Aladdin were frankly a little weak in this outing and the smut wasn’t actually all that great. 

Im actually really disappointed cause I expected so much from this and it didnt deliver in the way id hoped. 
Yasmin was really two dimensional and while Julian was hot, i didnt FEEL like he was hot. He was Italian and dark haired and had all the makings to be a sexy villain, he just didnt do enough hot things to illicit the same response as her other male characters. His issues with his mother was kinda shit and wasnt even resolved properly. 
I skimmed the latter half cause i just wasnt invested in the side plot about the lamp or the betrayal or anything. 

*sigh* it just wasn’t great and im really sad about that. Forced marriage is always a fun trope and this wasnt executed well enough.

I was shown a Tik Tok about how shocking this book was so of course i had to read it lol dare i say tho, it wasnt even that bad. 

Always read to get your own opinions because other than sex on the altar and sacred oils as lube, nothing much happened to warrant such a reaction. Yes hes a priest so its all a bit sacrilegious but theres actually somewhat of a story here. 
Father Bell struggling with his faith once he falls in love is a normal enough dilemma but with the added backstory about his sister, it actually gives it some substance. 

The end dragged a bit that i ended up skimming a bit but the smut was smutting and thats what matters with books of this nature.

I’d forgotten how drawn out the last third of these books can be, but I was excited about the series, finally featuring a black female character!

This is the 7th Orc Sworn book so even if youve not read the others, you can try them all cause they follow much the same smutty fun pattern. Woman scared of Orc. Woman have sex with Orc. Woman love Orc. 😂

While I enjoy the tasty orc seed and gushing geyser of orgasms as usual lol I did have a few issues with the rep at the start of the book. 

I liked that a black character was being featured, but once I realised that she was still in fact the Other in this world that the author had built, it kind of lost its appeal. 

I wanted Geva to just be Black, to just exist, but it was made apparent from the start that she is from somewhere else and she is different and people treat her differently because she is Black.

While this wasn’t in any way, really serious triggering or concerning racism at all, just the fact that it was included made it rather annoying.

Once I got past that annoyance, however, the story was as all other Orc Sworn books are, a light bit of fun, with some intense smut scenes and voyeurism amongst orcs, so nothing too different on that front!

There was some cliche rep once more, when the author made it a point that the orc was not allowed to touch her hair or to spew his seed in it lol While this is fine to include - I guess - it felt a little tacky? and could have been omitted. 

The plot was a little drawn out at the end, as mentioned, but overall a decent enough read if youre focusing on the smut element of the book. 

Again, a lot of travel and a lot of talking then some fighting thrown in at the end.
I love the revelations and excited to see what they do with the new discovery but everything outside of Saphira and Eragon feels like elongated filler.
Roran is boring. Nasuada is a bit of a biyatch. Arya has absolutely no personality. I like Angela as ever but i'm at a loss why shes there half the time cause she hardly does anything with her magic! haha

Ah well, onto book four and then the cycle will be complete! #ReadYourShelf2023

 “Do your worst, your Majesty. I’m ready for every twisted, dark thing you can dream up.”

I feel like this quote is exactly how I went into the Kingdom of the Wicked series, and the entire thing just failed to deliver.

A series about seven dark princes of hell, influenced by the sensory and sexy backdrop of Italy, was meant to be something special, and instead turned out to be something quite trashy.

In short, nothing made sense. Connections in a vain attempt to reel the story back to what it had been in the beginning were weak. I cared nothing for the characters and I cared nothing for the plot. This book can be read and understood, simply by reading the dialogue. The excessive descriptions and attempt at world building all amount to nothing.
Where book two at least had the fun element with the excessive smut, this book failed, even in that. All sexual acts were repetitive and just plain boring considering Amelia was having crisis, however, rarely with a seductive Prince of hell who constantly tells you, how enigmatic and dangerous and powerful he is in bed, I expected a whole lot more than this.

Smut aside, this series started out with a lot of potential but was not able to deliver as it succumbed to the pressure of adding swear words and sex scenes in order to make the forced transition from YA to “adult“. There was absolutely nothing adult about this.

The only positive for completing this series is that I have now completed the series lol and can remove them from my shelves. A win for #ReadYourShelf2023. 

 I really enjoyed the romance element of the book and the writing was wonderful. Great descriptions, great elemental magic concepts and world building throughout. My main issue was the complexity of characters and plot at the very beginning which made it difficult to understand where we were and when. It evened out by the end and had a satisfying conclusion but just too a while to get there.
Really love Haze and Eoin, great book boyfriends to sink your teeth into lol 

 Another let down for the new year reads unfortunately. This was a re read and reading with older eyes, you realise how long winded these books are. There is so much exposition and travelling and training with nothing much else happening. There are significant fight scenes at the end of a slog of travel to give it some action but then it gets slow again.
Eragon and Saphira are the stars of the show obviously, but everyone else just feels a little lacklustre. Roran is annoying, Arya is just a bit of a stuck up bitch and Nasuada is just a bit plain for me at the moment. I did chuckle at the references to she and her father's skin colour. We have come a long way in Fantasy by including Black and Brown people, and i love that a then 15 year old (or however old CP was) included this all on his own. A true trailblazer.

The end gave it the appropriate 'omg' moment so you have to continue but im not sure i'll do so, too soon. Its just too much slog. The last two books will be brand new reads for me so hoping things change a bit with those. 

As I write this and i’m really happy that those who liked its predecessor, get the ending that i believe is right for the characters and the story.

I appreciate that there is a lot of information in this book, that while at times a lot to take in, serve an over-arcing purpose that displays the lengths that ruling bodies - in this case patriarchal - will go to, to rob women of their strength and power.

Honour allows Aspen to take that power back in her own realistic way and I am proud of the woman ive turned her into. Shes not perfect, shes not meant to be, but she tries and that is half the battle.
In the words of Sansa Stark “I’m a slow learner, its true. But I learn.”

I find Wolves of Honour honest, real, powerful and hopeful in many ways and I hope you all do as well