eggcatsreads's Reviews (480)

An Applachian folk fantasy that will have you believing in witchcraft and the inherent majesty and power of the mountains that make up all of Appalachia.

“Benethea Mattox was not raised to be a fool. Yet here she was, fishing a skinny white lady out of a river.”

I really loved this book from the first page (the first sentence even), and it kept me engaged throughout. We meet Bennie, a forcibly retired safety officer determined to find out just what is causing miners to consistently go missing in the mountain overlooking the town she lives in. During her investigation she accidentally finds Motheater, a witch out of time without a name and powers that break one’s understanding of the world. Together they must fight together to save their town from a power that neither one expected to haunt it. 

If you love Applachian folk magic, a touch of horror, and the unyielding loom of industry always on the horizon, this is the book for you. Reading this felt like it was straight out of a season of Old Gods of Appalachia, and I never could predict where this story was going. The romance progressed naturally, the conflict was diverse, and the book ended on a high note - without solving the complex issues that were explored with a simple fix that would not have felt realistic. 

I’m from Pennsylvania, which is in turn both part of Appalachia and not depending on the location and your opinion of it, but I’ve lived near the Appalachian mountains almost my entire life and I could so easily see the descriptions of all the mountains present within this book. The looming and majestic presence of Kire, the stripped mountains from strip-mining, and just the presence of nature and the feel of the wildness when walking amongst those giants. This book is beautifully written, and perfectly captures the intrinsic feeling of loss felt when looking at a once-majestic mountain stripped to barely anything due to mining. 

My only real issue with this book is that a main plot point is that Motheater doesn’t remember her own name, and this is the thing limiting her power. However, when we delve into the past with her memories, her name is given within these chapters. I think the impact at the end when Motheater is given her name back would have been more impactful if she is referred to as simply Motheater during these chapters, or something like E—- is used, to still have it be a mystery. 

A huge thank you to the author, NetGalley, and Kensington Publishing for providing this e-ARC.

 

A romantic historical fiction where a vampire and a vampire hunter are forced to work together to try to rid the world of vampires entirely. This book had a perfect blend of romance, tension, and danger where you wanted to keep reading to see if they could not only succeed in their mission - but if they could stay together to the end of it.

The historical worldbuilding in this book in regards to the vampires - their powers, their strengths, their weaknesses - I thought was a very interesting take on the vampire genre. This book combines well-known vampire lore with some new changes, and provides a realistic in-universe explanation for all of it. I liked following Lalo as he grappled with his newfound curse and tried to discover everything he could about it - and how when confronted with Carolina, he had to justify his discoveries. 

The romance between Carolina and Lalo was fun and a blast to read through both of their perspectives. I loved how we’d get a chapter from the point of view from one of them, and then immediately the other point of view would tell us how much they actually liked the other. I did feel like a bit of the romance was done very quickly, with a big focus on how attractive they found each other, but I did like how nothing actually happened until their feelings caught up with everything else. I also loved how both Carolina and Lalo grew and changed as people due to the influence of the other, but that neither of them asked or expected the other to change - they simply grew as people together. 

My only issue was that the ending seemed to be a bit rushed, and I felt that once their goal was completed every antagonist within the book was suddenly forgiven for their previous actions. However, I did have a blast reading this, and if you were wanting a book that felt like a softer version of Vampires of El Norte, I’d absolutely pick this up. 

(Also, this doesn’t matter in any way, but there is a scene where Carolina - who knows how to fight - is teaching Lalo how to punch, and she has him tuck his thumb under his fingers which is the opposite of what you’re supposed to do if you don’t want to break your thumb. I’m only adding this because it stood out to me and I was waiting the entire book to see if she had perhaps done this as a prank, because with him being a vampire it wouldn’t have been a permanent injury.)

 

A short mystery novella taking place during the events of The Goblin Emperor, I found this a fun and enjoyable read that made me excited to get back into this world in anticipation for the third book in the Cemeteries of Amalo. A fairly quick and easy read, this book focuses on a disgraced historian named Ulcetha accused of stealing an artifact, unable to continue his scholarship when unable to clear his name. With the crashing of the Emperor’s airship - and his friend who was the pilot - he’s left mysterious clues that lead him into an investigation with more twists than he ever saw coming. 

I found this novella to be fun and entertaining, but I would consider the way this book is written to be more on par with the offshoot series starring Thara Celehar, as opposed to the political court intrigue present in the Goblin Emperor. While this novella is short, and the pieces to the puzzle come together fairly quickly, I enjoyed Ulcetha’s investigation and think he would greatly get along with Thara, if the two were to ever meet. (Forgive me if this character has come up before, but if so I don't remember him - it’s been a while since I’ve read these books.) Both Thara and Ulcetha work to uncover the truth behind the investigation - even when everyone else is against them, and doing so would cause them more strife than anything else. I appreciated his determination to uncover the full mystery, even when the consequences would not benefit him.

All in all, I found this to be a nice appetizer to getting myself back into the world of the Goblin Emperor, and any fan of the series who likes mysteries and investigations I believe would find this to be a fun read. While the events taking place in TGE are present in the background of this book, I don’t believe you need to be overly familiar - or remember them too closely - to understand the timeline in this book. While taking place in the same universe, much like the Cemeteries of Amalo series, this book focuses on our main character as he tries to live the life the world has dealt him, and get to the bottom of the mystery that has landed in his lap. 

 DNF at 51%. I may finish reading this book at some point, since the sections that happen in the past with the three sisters on their island I find interesting, but nothing else about the plot has kept me engaged enough to want to continue. Plenty of other people have mentioned the glaring lack of native Americans present during the scenes that take place in Roanoke - and yet there are plenty of mentions of massacres of native peoples as well as those taken to be enslaved - so I won’t go too in-depth with that here. In all honesty, that issue is not why I decided to stop reading this book. I just could not get over how poorly I felt the plot of the two locations in this book were stitched together. 

The scenes on the island felt natural, and I did enjoy the ability to see the passing of time based on the names and outfits of the sailors - as compared to the siren sisters who are stuck in one place and from the time they were banished. However, once the main sister washes ashore on Roanoke, I felt like the plot fell apart entirely. You would have me believe that these people simply believed that a woman, by herself in a boat surrounded by treasure, washed ashore and their response was to simply believe that she is actually a princess looking for a husband? Huh? This part felt so poorly formulated I was in disbelief when her plan had come to light, because it seemed absolutely wild that anyone would ever believe this story - and especially not a bunch of godly people living in the harshness of the New World. Everything that happened during the “Now” parts felt unrealistic and like it only existed to make the story move forward.

I also found the story to be oddly told - with only bits and pieces being shown to us as we read, and yet already kicking off the plot with the much later actions. The entire reason Thelia is at Roanoke is because, apparently, she was told by Proserpina that she could reverse their curse if “she had more blood” but. That’s it. I don’t know how she was the one chosen to go to Roanoke, how they decided on the plan to shove her in a boat with treasure, how or when they were changed back into humans, nothing. And I would like to clarify that yes, I know I haven’t finished this book, but I feel like those are very reasonable plot questions that should have been answered earlier and when they were occurring. Especially about the boat with the treasure, or why Thelia was chosen, or why she chose the ridiculous reasoning for her presence that she did. Once again, I stopped reading because I felt like half of the plot was so poorly held together it stretched the imagination past believability. 

I also felt like the “romance” that was presented in this book was uncomfortable. The entire reason our main character is attracted to the woman that she is is because she, apparently, looks exactly like her former love of Proserpina - and for no other reason. Every description of the woman forces us to be reminded that she is only interested in her because of someone else, and never by her own merits. In my opinion, as the “romance” progressed and we see the beginnings of the love interest being attracted to the main character, I was rooting for her to NOT be because she deserved better than to just come as a runner-up to someone Thelia has been in love with for millenia. 

This book also goes to great lengths to show us how every man in this world is cruel and evil, and how our main character cannot talk to a single one without thinking about how he should be killed. Practically every woman in this book is shown to be trapped and unhappy with her lot in life, and every man is shown to be completely happy doing the trapping. I’m not saying that plenty of women weren’t oppressed during this time, but - even for the scenes outside of Roanoke - we cannot get one single mention of a man without the negative commentary about his actions or personality, even if he hasn’t actually done anything by that point. Instead, we (within the mind of the main character) are simply waiting for him to prove our disdain, every single time. It got extremely tiring and repetitive after a while. 

I think this book could have captured my attention better if it had done a better job of using its location properly (it seems odd to specifically mention how you, as the author, didn’t feel like it was your place to write native American characters and then use Roanoke as a location), or improve the plot and characterization. The idea of Greek sirens being the reason for the disappearance of the colony at Roanoke I think could have been interesting, but the way this was written was not and required a lot of suspension of disbelief that kept taking me out of the story. I also felt like the storytelling format fell flat, where decisions would be made and we (as the reader) had no understanding or reasoning behind them - which, when so many of those same decisions were rather absurd - having an ounce of reasoning would have, potentially, helped keep me in the story. 

Also. Why the Roman names for everyone? Odd choice.

 

With the premise of this being a reality show with murder being an unexpected plot point of the season, I was really hoping to enjoy this book more than I did. I will admit to not being the biggest fan of reality television, but I’ve dabbled and found entertainment in it enough that I thought this book would interest me - and I was wrong. I’m unsure if all of the drama felt flat, or that our main characters were the “normal” ones in the cast, making their parts feel more bland than normal, and I seriously considered DNF’ing this book multiple times. 

The first chapter begins with the “shocking” reveal of the murder, and then we backtrack months earlier to get to that point, and I honestly feel like this made the book drag more than was necessary. The entire time I was mentally waiting to just get on with it and didn’t care one iota about the underlying plot. I feel like the reveal of who is murdered kind of ruined the suspense, because the entire time I was both waiting for her to die, and also keeping an eye out on who would kill her. Also, no spoilers, but the murdered character has a past that - quite literally - has nothing to do with the plot. I understand it’s there as a red herring, but when absolutely nothing would have changed had this section been removed I ended the book wondering why I even wasted my time with reading those parts. 

This isn’t necessarily a terrible thing, but since we start the book knowing who will be murdered - the actual culprit is obvious the entire novel, so nothing - down to how she dies - is really a shock. As well, the romances within this book felt blank and unnecessary, especially considering there is a romance with the character who is murdered - but then, the person she is with immediately gets together with her cousin! And while the book tried to go with the “they trauma-bonded together” angle, it felt extremely off and ended the book with a bad taste in my mouth.

Overall, I felt the pacing of this book to be extremely slow, with a majority of the runtime focused on the non-existent reality television show, and only near the end remembering that there was supposed to be a murder mystery plot. The investigation felt stilted and unrealistic, as well as how they caught the ones responsible for the events of the novel. I never really connected with any of the characters - even those we were clearly supposed to - and I felt bored the majority of this book, with my only thoughts to how unrealistic things were going, or wondering why I even cared about specific events that unfolded. 

Also, this isn’t a real complaint, but we begin the book with our producer - Eden - who is very clearly an aromantic bisexual, and yet her desire to not have any romantic attachments is, by the end of the novel, portrayed as a negative that she had to “change” with therapy. No. She didn’t. The only thing she needed to actually change was how she approached her relationships, and how clear she made her boundaries around romance to those she had relationships with. It left an EXTREMELY bad taste in my mouth to end the book with her in a both romantic and sexual relationship, and to look back on her previous actions as a form of psychopathy she needed intensive therapy to learn from, and to realize that the start of the book was intended to portray this behavior as “odd” and “wrong.” Up until the very end I was expecting her and the other producer she idolized, who also had strong aromantic energy, to enter into a lesbian aromantic relationship. Instead, I get Eden by the end of this novel insulting and thinking the other woman is a heartless freak for not having those emotions that Eden started the novel not having either. This didn’t really have any real impact on the story but it really bothered me, as you can tell by the lengthy paragraph I’ve written about it. I want to be clear, I don’t believe the author intended for it to come across this way, but (at least for me) it very much did. 

 

The much anticipated sequel to Faebound - Cursebound - doesn’t waste any time in getting into the action. With the twist that an elf is able to become faebound to an obeah and another elf becoming the king, tensions are rising within fae society - especially from those who are called “Lightless,” those unable to faebound. In addition to the dangers lurking at home are the dangers present within the elven war, and the revelation that the fae were helping to turn the tide. With the romance between Yeeran and Furi forcing the fae to move out of the elven war, stakes are raised when this risks the fae being exposed. 

This book adds another point of view that adds intrigue to the story, and despite Yeeran being separated for a majority of the novel at no point does it feel like an event isn’t necessary. Many times, authors get bogged down with too many pov characters and sometimes we feel like certain perspectives aren’t needed, or sometimes we’ll leave a high-stakes chapter to read one that feels pointless in comparison. None of that happens in this book, at every point I was engaged and felt like everything that was happening was part of the bigger picture - from Lettle’s discoveries, to Yeeran’s capture, to the very present danger lurking around every corner from every character. I also loved how it was almost impossible to tell who, exactly, was behind the assassination attempts - and yet, it never felt like it wasn’t realistic. It all led to a tension-building reveal where it forces the main characters to acknowledge the buildup of problems as tensions rise and the death count rises. 

Second books in trilogies are notoriously difficult to do, but I feel like with both of her trilogies Saara El-Arifi is able to improve her world building and raise the anticipation for how this series will end. I enjoyed Cursebound more than I did Faebound (not that I didn’t enjoy Faebound), and I am super excited for the third and final book in this trilogy. This book ends with a highly unexpected plot twist that I cannot wait to see how it will be explored in the finale. If you were looking for a political fantasy with romance, secret assassination plots, and actual conflict between the romantic leads, I’d strongly recommend this trilogy. I cannot wait to see how it ends!

Medea tells the story of the commonly reviled sorceress Medea from her childhood to after she takes her revenge on Jason in a new light. With new twists and interpretations present within this story, even those familiar with the story of Medea will find themselves surprised by some of the events present in this retelling. 

I’ve recently read two separate retellings of Medea, both of which interpreted the character in their own unique ways, but I may be beginning to think that Greek myth retellings may not be entirely for me. While this book was written in an interesting and engaging way, I think the thing it struggled with most was in refusing to allow Medea to be any kind of villain until the story forces the author to have her be one. Instead, for most of this book, there was some kind of explanation that absolved Medea of any guilt or responsibility - either a complete changing of the myth itself, or having her be forced into those actions by the gods/Fate or Jason himself. Medea herself has very little agency within this story - not with her relationship with Jason, her decision to leave Kolchis, nor many of the deaths she causes along the way. In a way, while trying to make Medea more of a sympathetic character she has been stripped of anything interesting about her to instead become a vessel of the story to be told - rather than the architect telling her own story. 

I personally think my biggest issue with this book was simply the fact that Medea was, at no point, ever allowed to embrace being any kind of villain. Instead, this book attempts to absolve her of any guilt for her actions entirely. I won’t spoil exactly how in my review, but I think the change that bothered me the most was with one of the first major things Medea is known for - with the “truth” being almost entirely the opposite of the myth. This, I felt, almost completely defanged her as a character and set the precedent that anything ‘evil’ she does from any point forward will be explained away, rather than being the truth. This, in turn, has the negative consequence that any time Medea does do something that matches the ruthlessness of the myth it feels like a different character entirely. And so, we are left with a character who doesn’t feel natural when she does those violent actions that the Medea in the myth is known for doing. 

However, I do think my issues with this book stem more from wanting a retelling of Medea that allows her to embrace being the villain she is known for while telling her side - but that also doesn’t completely remove those actions from her story. As such, I would highly encourage anyone who is a fan of Greek myth retellings, as well as the story of Medea, to check out this book for themselves to see if you get something out of this book that I did not. Overall, this book is written very lyrically and I did enjoy the story told within it, I just felt it was - at times - not a story of Medea.