4.5* stars

LYRICALLY BEAUTIFUL.

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Once again, I was swept away by the way Amy Harmon writes.

This book is steeped in the magic of studying family history. Harmon draws heavily from her own travels to Europe and the time period from which her great+ grandparents lived. It is so important to know and understand where we come from and WtWK convinced me (and I know that wasn’t the point) to look at my own history.

The romance is yet again so precious. How understanding is Thomas? Because you better believe I would be freaking out a lot more if “Anne” showed back up, 5 years missing from her time period, without a clue as to what happened. Their story flowed at a good pace and I was shipping them forward continually.

I was really caught up in how this book would resolve. It was unclear if everything was going to fall into place, but never fear Harmon brings things full circle leaving me completely happy with how it came together.

My only reasoning for giving it a 4.5* is that there is a lot of history put in there. Discussions about the rebellion, civil war, political meetings, etc. Yes, they helped me understand what was happening, but it was thick with this information. I felt it was taking away from the fact that this is a romance novel at it’s base.

Overall audience notes:
- Historical fiction romance
- Very little language
- Romance: some intense make-outs and glossed over love scenes
- Violence: guns, fire

DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA.

3.5*

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Do you remember growing up when you were home sick from school and you got to watch The Price is Right? Then after that was over you occasionally would let Days of our Lives play after before realizing you were glued to the TV with the drama?

This. This is how I felt about CRA. The hilarity of the wealth and drama that unfolded kept me turning pages for reasons I can’t explain. It’s not a book to ponder deep thinking. This is purely entertainment.

It takes a little bit to get into because of how many family members are in the story. Once I had a handle on who was who things cleared up.

There were a lot moving parts and I was distracted away from the story between Rachel and Nick constantly. I didn’t care about half of the people the chapters would flip to and was frustrated that the focus really wasn’t on them. The only other character I could bother to care for was Astrid.

Surprisingly, there were footnotes in this book! I actually appreciated them [most of the time] because it defined the language and food better. I now want to travel to Singapore just to eat, because holy cow everything sounded delicious.

I don’t really have much to say for this review. I couldn’t put it down, but I also am not interested in books two and three. I felt this one ended in the RomCom way, I was fine with it, and don’t need a continuation of the story.

Overall audience notes:
- Contemporary Fiction
- Language: a lot of f* bombs, very derogatory words and inappropriate conversations
- Violence: verbal
- Romance: kisses, some glossed over love scenes
- Trigger warnings: racism, cheating husband’s, dog fighting scene, verbal child abuse, depression

CUTE & PREDICTABLE.

I am a total mood reader. I’ll look at the books I have in hand and choose purely based off of what I’m looking for. In this case, it was a fluffy, predictable, romance that called my name. And this is one of those cases where, predictable is good and welcome.

This group of high school kids absolutely annoyed me to no end. Luckily, the only two I liked happened to be the main characters, Zorie and Lennon. I was actually excited when they ended up on their own because I was completely invested in their story of friends/lovers to enemies and back again.

I also appreciated that this book had positive anxiety rep. I personally struggle with anxiety and really felt for Zorie and how she coped with it. One of the best parts was how Lennon never faulted her for this. He continually checked on her, helped her plan to smooth her fears, and ohemgee Lennon became my favorite immediately.

While I was rooting for them to get together, I think it went a tad overboard. I was amazed that somehow within 18 hours (give or take) they went through a whole sleeve of condoms and called the time sexlation. Cool, cool, cool, cool, and all, but mmm, a bit of a nope for me. If I take out that piece though, the witty banter/flirting and coming to terms with what separated them initially was solid. Nothing felt rushed and everything was laid out as it should be.

Overall audience notes:
- Young adult contemporary romance
- Romance: discussion of kisses and the fact so-and-so had sex and that they want to have sex || descriptive make-outs and a somewhat detailed love scene(s)
- Language: quite a bit, including a homophobic slur
- Violence: physical and verbal
- Trigger warnings: suicide, loss of a parent, cheating spouse, homophobia, anxiety and depression

WHAT. DID. I. JUST. READ.

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I have read the darkest book I believe I will ever read.

“I hear the crack of his skull before the spattering of blood reaches me.”

I mean, I cringed at the first sentence as the mental image ran through my head! That was only the beginning for the maliciously wicked book.

I sat there moments after finishing not knowing what I had read. I haven’t read any CoHo books in awhile, but picked this up for the different nature from her usual NA romances. AH, I am finding it hard to put this review into words.

So much happened. My heart was racing and I could only focus on finishing this (which I did in hours). That’s how intense things became. I thought I had figured out where the book was going, and I thought I was right, until I got to the ending. I love unreliable characters making morally iffy choices.

Whoa. If you have anything for romance thrillers, try this one out.

But please, this book is not for the faint of heart. CoHo wrote a completely unpleasant story that is a lot to take.

Overall audience notes:
- Adult romance thriller
- Language: a lot: cursing, vulgar, slurs, etc.
- Violence: physical, murder (in various forms, but don’t want to spoil!)
- Romance: a LOT of sex & very very (too much honestly) descriptive
- Trigger warnings: death of a child, death of a parent, car accident, attempting to abort, child abuse

NOT AS EPIC AS I HOPED.

The summary unfortunately had me convinced of a lot more than the book gave me. I know it’s the first in a trilogy, but I expected a different story than I read.

We were immediately thrown into action, which I don’t mind at all. Everything was happening and it set the tone for the rest of the book. But then, the plot essentially was Rone and Sandis running around the same city in the same places hiding from a man while simultaneously trying to find another guy they know nothing about.

Sandis was dull. She has the extraordinary capability to become this fire horse, Ireth. Instead of learning about her powers and how to summon on her own she ran around having Rone save her over and over. I was hoping to see a lot more of the Numen and understand their history, but I think that must be a plot line further down? I’m not sure, background information and world building was altogether missing.

Rone was the best part of the story. He was sassy, a little wicked and had a deep rooted passion to protect his mother. This I am totally behind. Rone really was the bigger protagonist of the two. I loved his inner dialogue and his struggle to make a best decision among a handful of bad options.

I have a lot of questions about all of the bad guys. There’s an evil cult leader who plays his part well, but I don’t know why he’s awful. Then we have the ancient spirit, Kolosos, who we’re supposed to be afraid of the entire time and I am confused as to why on that too.

The story is there and I am still considering the second book. I can see how Sandis’s character can grow and change over the series in awesome ways. The plot definitely thickened toward the end and left me anticipating what would happen next.

Overall audience notes:
- Young adult fantasy
- Very little language
- Romance: flirting
- Violence: guns, physical, knives
- Trigger warnings: small scene of brief sexual assault

Note: Thank you to the publisher, Wednesday Books, for sending a physical ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

NOT MY CUP OF TEA.

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I was really excited about this book, mainly because of the summary. It sounded Michael Vey-ish (and I loved that series!) and was hoping for more of the same. It’s completely crazy that some mad scientist messed with embryos for his own gain! How evil right? While the concept and premise is there, the story itself never came together for me.

I also did like that they repped my alma mater, Texas A&M, a handful of times. That was cool. And jumping all over the U.S. was interesting. I liked that it wasn’t a stagnant story in one location. There was a lot of change in POV as well. I personally like that because I get to see the story from multiple sides and understand the characters on a deeper level.

I felt this book could be much more appropriate and fun for a younger audience, if it wasn’t trying so hard to be more adult. I’m fine with language, unless it crosses a line that leads into unnecessary. Calling the bad guys the “F**ktastic Four” and having Tate continually calling Foster a “witch” really rubs me the wrong way. I couldn’t get behind the relationship because heaven knows I would never allow someone to call me that than kiss me a few days later. I even physically cringed during some conversations that were added to no benefit of the plot.

I didn’t much care for any of these characters. With typical teenagers, I get it, they are still figuring life out. But in this case I felt everyone was contradicting themselves. Saying/doing one thing, then within the same chapter completely flipping on that narrative. Personalities were way too stereotypical and flat. The villains basically do nothing other than sit around and complain. Dr. Stewart, the supposed evil scientist, is hardly in this book. His minions aren’t even that nefarious. They were all bark and no bite, making them awfully dull.

I wasn’t a big fan of the comics in this book either. I generally enjoy coming up with an image in my head of what a character looks like, and not being forced into it by pictures that make you pause in the middle of reading (truly interrupting you). They took away from the story rather than added to it.

The writing wasn’t my favorite and felt forced at times. There was a lot to happen, but yet, didn’t happen. And side characters all of a sudden best friends, and love interests with very little connection other than teenage “oh look how hot they are” angst. I was confused by the addition of more high caliber words (like fuliginous) next to simple phrases. It really felt like two separate people wrote this book rather than a meeting of the minds.

I have more, but don’t feel it’s worth the time to continue. *sighs*

Overall audience notes:
- Young adult fantasy (in contemporary world)
- Language: a word in just about every paragraph
- Romance: some kisses, thoughts of how hot everyone is
- Violence: natural disasters (tornadoes)
- Trigger warnings: verbal sexual harassment, a near plane crash

GOOD.

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It’s simple. This book was good, not great. I still was captured into the story by the writing and characters, but it was still missing that last little oomph that makes it a 5 star.

I love love love Lyss. She is a beast. A warrior. Independent. Lyss doesn’t even own a dress! And she has muscles! Oh how I adore the way the author portrays her heroines. I can’t wait to see how Lyss grows into the future Queen of the Fells and rules her Queendom. This is a big reason why I continue to love this (and her previous) series.

The love story is cute, definitely not insta-love like it was in Flamecaster. A little more slow-burn, with my favorite trope: enemies to lovers. Hal is caring and enigmatic. I really want more of his back story. I think there relationship is going places and I am here for it. He only annoyed me when he became a little too love-struck and that literally all he could talk about.

I was a bit confused that we only saw a few characters from the previous book. As a series it was strange to change to essentially a whole new cast. The two stories with Ash and Lyss haven’t combined yet so I’ll see what kind of answers I get in the next installment, Stormcaster.

The plot is engaging and continually moving forward. The antagonists are closing in from both sides on the Fells. And the action kept me on my toes. I’m definitely still interested in continuing this story.

Overall audience notes:
- Young adult fantasy
- Language: very little
- Romance: an intense-ish make-out
- Violence: arrows, knives, poison, explosions, physical