cozysabie's Reviews (183)

GENRE: Historical Fantasy
RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
FORMAT: eArc
Would I recommend to others?: Yes, yes, yes! This book is perfect for you if you love historical fantasy.

Review:
I've recently fell in love with historical fantasy and this book was no exception! In this book, we follow the adventures of Ellie and Adam. We meet Ellie first, who is trying to change the world as she protests for women's right in London. She is a woman who loves Archaeology but is not presented with the opportunity to pursue that field in her time as it is only permitted for men to lead surveys and explore the world of Archaeology.

However, Ellie is an FMC that is strong minded and has a strong will. She finds a secret book that her horrible boss is about to sell to make money and she wants to protect history and takes it in her own hand. This is where we meet the MMC, Adam Bates. He is an American guy who has his own past and was provided the privilege of education in university and a job that Ellie could only dream of as a woman. Obviously, they clash on this issue. Aside from that, the banter and conversation between them is so fun to follow along.

I loved getting the lore and history of Tulan city in this book. Benson manages to add interesting historical concepts and still continues the light-hearted banter between Ellie and Adam. I am super excited for book 2 in this series of Raiders of the Arcana and can't wait to see where this adventure will take them!

Thank you for the eArc copy from R&R Book tour in exchange for my honest opinion.

"Why, the same way any monster does! By finding the humor in it all!" Eugene Chortled."

"After all, how could a monster ever love?"

GENRE: Cozy Horror Romance
RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
FORMAT: Physical Arc Copy with MTMC & Author
Would I recommend to others?: Okay so this is my first monster romance and cozy horror and yes, I'd recommend this book to others for sure! Its such an easy read. Please check out the trigger list though!

Review:
Firstly, thank you to MTMC Tour & the author for a copy of the physical Arc book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Okay so this is my first monster romance book and it is marketed as cozy horror, which if you know anything about my page, you'd know that I'm the targeted audience with the word "cozy" in it. I've been wanting to explore cozy horror book and when I saw that MTMC tour was advertising this book, I thought it would be the perfect place to start and boy, I wasn't wrong!

I was legit laughing and giggling throughout this book. Like getting to know Ella and Eugene and going on the adventure with them and still exploring serious issues like Autism Rep, why the MMC is morally grey and so on while it was still so cozy and wholesome was just a whole other thing. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and even though I was a bit wary as it was my first monster romance (I dont know why but my mind automatically goes to like having a robot monster kind of romance, which I know is more Sci-Fi but that's just me being me), I enjoyed Eugene, our morally grey monster and the way he speaks is just so quirky and I LOVED it.

I also quite enjoyed how the author portrays autism and how she describes it through Ella. It is mentioned in the book that autism is portrayed differently in people and this is clear enough that Ella doesnt consider herself the expert in it but she portrays her own experience and how she overcame the challenges. I think as another neurodivergent person, I could relate to a lot of the feelings she was expressing and how she came to act and be. I loved the Eugene, who didnt know why she did the things she does, was so considerate and thoughtful even if he didnt know what to do all the time.

I do think that some people may get annoyed by the way he is portrayed but honestly, I'd recommend this book to whoever loves cozy horror and wants to explore this genre like I did. I rated this book a 4 stars as it took me through a whole giggling journey like I didnt know who I was while reading this lol. Here are some of my favourite quotes:

"Failure was inevitable. It was part of the human experience or something like that, and as much as it stung, he had handled many a setback with proper sensibilities and logic."

"Patience was always a burden, but he knew the rewards would far outweigh the delay."

"She might have loved easily, might have been impulsive in her feelings, but Ella had always told people she loved them when she felt it. There was no point in keeping love inside when it was meant to be shared."

“Its a beautiful sort of devastation, a glittering chaos, and it ends as quickly as it began.”

“Grief is like a chronic ache, I think - It’s always there, but sometimes you notice it more and sometimes less, and sometimes its unbearable and sometimes you think it might be gone for good.”

GENRE: Fantasy
RATING: ⭐⭐⭐.75/5
FORMAT: eBook Arc
Would I recommend to others?: Yes, to those who are interested in Eastern European folklore!

Short Review:
This book was a lovely read, in which I rated it is as a 3.75 stars and rounded it up to 4 in here. One of my favourite folklore is Eastern European and this is my first time reading Polish Mythology! This book gave me cozy fantasy vibes with cottagecore adventure (is there such a thing? This book makes it a thing for sure!)

I enjoyed getting to know our main characters: Liska and Leszy. I enjoyed getting to know the background behind their magic, the reason why they are the way they are and how it shaped them. I truly enjoyed the mentions of their past and the way it was added as flashbacks to strengthen our understanding of them as characters. Half the time, I was like “omg why did they become this way?” So I truly enjoyed that part in this book. I also loved the addition of the cute side characters: Spirits, past human souls & mythical characters taking their shapes are humans. The conversation Liska has with them is adorable, cozy and feeds so nicely into the story!

I loved the adventure and character development of Liska, as we get to know her and see how she struggled to fit in and does her best to change herself so that she can be accepted in her village of Stodola:

She will do anything to prove that she is not dangerous, that she belongs, to the village and her people.”

“It’s not a curse, little one.” He kneels in front of her, looking up. “It’s merely a challenge. We are all given burdens in life. God simply gave you a heavier load because he believes you are strong enough to carry it. Your magic is a test, and you must resist at all costs.”

“You are not a monster, Liska Radost. You are sunlight, and you breathe life into everything you touch.”

Additionally, we get to see the effect of the church and pagan beliefs and how they blended together in the Polish village. This is evidential throughout the story. We even get to see memories from when Liska was a child and trying to navigate her magic:

“Children do foolish things until they are old enough to understand they are foolish.”

I think, for me, what lacked in “where the dark stands still” is a little bit of the pace and the fact that majority of the things don’t happen till around 55-60% of the book. I do know this is common with fantasy but it was just a bit too slow for my liking. This was obviously not enough to push me away from the story and keep me from reading it! I did thoroughly enjoy it but it didn’t Wow me.

I would recommend this book to those who enjoy slow paced fantasy books that focus on Polish Mythology and that has a bit of romance and cottagecore-cozy vibes (but filled with action)! The author refers to this as a strange and spooky found family at the House Under the Rowan Tree and I couldn’t agree more. I entirely loved the spooky vibes of the forest, the house & the story in general.

Thank you Netgalley for the eArc in exchange for my honest review.

“In Egypt? We're all looking for something."


"Part of me wished I'd never come to Egypt. Then I would have never discovered such a horrifying betrayal. I would never have known how families could turn on one another in unforgiveable cruelty."


"While I stuided each one, I couldn't help hoping that I would paint something that might be worth saving, something that would outlive me."

GENRE: Historical Fantasy
RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
FORMAT: Physical, Special edition from Fairyloot
Would I recommend to others?: Yes, please read this book, this is a journey of learning how to deal with abadonment, grief and that the people you love the most are the ones that can hurt you the most. Ibanez wrote this in such a lovely way that it was so heartfelt and emotional yet the historical and mystery part of the book was so well done, you wont be able to put the book down!

Review:
Okay, to say I loved this book is an understatement. This book is going on my Roman Empire list. I devoured this book in 24 hours and I only stopped because life so rudely interrupted my reading session. The writing, the plot, the characters, the development, basically everything was perfect. I think everyone should read this book, especially if you like historical fantasy. (Right before diving & commiting to the fantasy genre, I was reading historical romance, so its no surprise that I love Historical fantasy.) ALSO, the book has some drawing done by the author (as far as my knowledge goes) and its so lovely to have these throughout the book!

In "What the River Knows", we follow Inez as she journeys through multiple struggles in life, including dealing with parents that are never around and having to grow up wondering why she wasnt enough.

"The trip was too dangerous for me, they said. The voyage long and arduous. For someone who had stayed in one place for most of her life, their yearly adventure sounded divine. Despite troubles they'd faced, it never stopped them from buying another ticket on a steamship sailing from the port of Buenos Aires all the wayt o Alexandria. Mama and Papa never invited me along. Actually, they forbade me from going."


"Yes, Inez, you may finally come to the country where we live half our lives away from you. Yes, Inez, you can finally see what we do in the desert, and why we love it so much - more than spending time with you. Yes, Inez, you'll finally understand why we leave you, again and again, and why the answer has always been no."


"I cherised every gift, every letter they mailed to me, even though it was half of what I sent to them. it didn't matter. A part of me understood that it was as much as I'd ever get from them. They'd chosen Egypt, had given themselves heart, body and soul. I had to learn to live with whatever was left over, even if it felt like heavy rocks in my stomach."


"A part of me understood. I was beginning to understand that I didn't trust my own parents. It was hard to when they kept so many secrets. They loved me, but hadn't shared their lives with their only child. It was hard to accept, hard to fathom."

Additionally, Inez is a woman in a society that was set up for men. She struggles throughout the book to be taken seriously due to her gender, her nationality and the society's mentality. After hearing that her parents passed away, she packs her bags and goes to Cairo. The adventure in here, the excitement, the forced proximity (trope) were all so intriguing and kept me holding on to the edge of my seat.

We also learn more about her family, how her father primarily shaped Inez and the daugher-father relationship would have been much stronger had he been inclusive of Inez in their lives. As for her mother, Inez and her had a relationship that was stiff & filled with rules and society's expectation rather than love. Despite this, we go through a journey of grief with Inez. As I'm currently going through the same, I could only relate to the way grief was written and discussed throughout the book:

"The feeling that I couldn't get enough air into my lungs fast enough. It would always feel this way. The pain was a forever fixture in my life. Much like having arms and legs and ears. Their death was a truth that was both strange, and yet profoundly ordinary. People die every day. Well-meaning distant relations told me that one day I'd be able to move past it. But I'd traveled thousands of miles only to discover that I couldn't leave this new weight I carried behind me."




Okay, I'm going to stop ranting and praising this book now but do yourself a favour and read it. You will be taken on a twisting adventure that will have you questioning everything. You will grief, laugh and fall in love and out of love with Inez. This book is so well written and I cannot wait for book two.

"Find something that sets your soul on fire, and follow it."

GENRE: Fantasy
RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
FORMAT: eBook Arc
Would I recommend to others?: YES!

Short Review:
Okay, so this book is a beautiful story, dedicated to those who could never find their place in this world, to those who everyone denied any claim in their own community, to those of us who were hurt by the trauma of our past. Somehow, following our three main characters, you begin to heal with them and learn how to trust again and to be kind to yourself. I think this book addresses so many topics in a lovely way and yet it is filled with action and plot twists that are delivered in a subtle way. This book feels like healing your soul while taking an adventure at the same time.

Long Review:
Where do I start? First, thank you to Emma for an eArc copy in exchange for my honest review and thank you for letting me be part of your street team!

The Nameless Heir is a beautiful book that is dedicated to those who could never find their place in the world and are a Clan of misfits. Just the dedication is enough to give you a preview of what the book is about:

"For the nameless, the misfits, and the broken, I claim you."

So the story follows three main characters: Fallon, Elowen and Ronen. Each of them is a misfit in a different way and the plot brings them together in a fascinating and interesting way. Ronen is introduced as a misfit due to the fact that he is half Nokken (which others fear as they are known to enchant others).

"Ronen felt absolutely no attraction to water, no desire to control it. Just the lust for taking a nice bath. His only Nokken feature was his blue left eye, in contract to his brown right eye. A sign of his half heritage."

"He would never stop searching for acceptance, even if it meant walking to the ends of every realm to do so."

Elowen is a lovely and gentle creature who got trapped at the human realm and seen as a misfit due to who she is (&her having a tail).

"In this world, Elowen was a swan among geese. Too beautiful, too pure, too good for this realm."

Fallon is a bastard from one of the realms in the mortal world and is betrayed by her own father.

"Betrayal. It had once been a disgusting, foreign concept to her. Now it was her truth. Her entire reason for breathing was to betray the ones she once called her people. Fallon was no better than the men before her, she was no better than anyone. Barwyn's bastard."

Fallon is such a strong FMC & we see her growth throughout the book. She learns to let go of her anger and become who she is truly meant to be.

"You are afraid of choosing to be, when all you know is the feeling of an empty heart."

All three of them together

"A clan of mistfits. Three half-blooded, beautiful misfits against the world"

Emma approaches many themes throughout the book but the main one is how the world can make you feel so isolated for being different, for daring to be BORN unique (which was never a choice). Through Fallon, Elown & Ronen, we see how the world changes and treats you as a stranger or a threat just because you look different or you are from a heritage that did not belong with your community.

We also see the effect of war & local struggles on the community and people:

"War was a sickness. And who it did not claim, it lived and festered within."

But, Emma shows the positive outcome that can come from it, in changing the world to make it a better place throughout the book.

And finally, we get to see the growth, development & effect of breaking the trauma cycle:

"A circle has no beginning and no end. The only way to escape a cycle is to break it."

"Emotions were the cruelest gift the gods ever gave. Men begged for the ability to create and destroy worlds, so they gave him the ability to create and destroy himself instead."

"Because happy people dont hurt people."

"A light that had lived within the deepest, most haunted parts of her soul, and still knew how to shine. Because a star must collapse before it is born."