Interesting parallels between both time periods that weren’t immediately predictable. A mix of history and fantasy like the author’s other book I’ve read and I enjoyed the mystery in it. 

Such a great book. It’s a great YA fantasy romance but it had depth and richness at the same time. The writing I thought was excellent and flowed well, and I loved the main characters of Aria and Baron. I so enjoyed the peripheral characters as well - I find quite often good supporting characters that are given adequate page time make the story so much richer, and this had it in spades. 

The story line took on a great focus of friendship, seeing that differences make us better, and learning to accept that our mistakes make us human and help us learn and have compassion. It did well at contrasting
shame and failure, prejudice and revenge and pride, and what all that does to your soul and to those around you when not held in check, versus the effect of mercy, courage, perseverance and love. 

Just so many good nuggets along with great characters and writing. Well done. 

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are mine. 

So so good. Love the process of facing unexpected suffering and finding how to both cope and grow in it, and learn how to live in your new normal. It was such a brilliant look at the emotional side of that - the ups and downs, as well as learning how to find hope and joy and purpose in it eventually. 

Love all the characters in it as well. Not just Margaret and Ian, but her family, Kit especially, was fantastic. Also fun crossover with Cassie from Things You Save in the Fire. 

I guess I had expected more related to the witch trials for this book based on the blurb and marketing. Instead it was more about Alice living in medieval Ireland with all the corruption, violence and brutality of the time, dealing with people who wanted to take advantage of her or were jealous of her and how she navigated her ambition against that. The witch hunt focus wasn’t until the very end, and sort of glossed over quickly.

The story itself wasn’t bad at all, just again, not what I expected or anticipated. It also had a sort of poetic quality more than a character-development focus, so it was a little atypical in the way the story flowed. The book worked thru how cunning Alice was, what circumstances she was dealt, as well as how utterly and shockingly foolish her character judgement and poor choice was in men. 

Ultimately I just didn’t like any of the characters. I think I would have been ok with the rest of it if not for that. They were all just awful people, either violent and cruel, self serving and vengeful, outside of the brief bits of husband #3, Richard De Valle. 

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are mine. 

Endearing and heartwarming. I loved both James and Hannah as characters, as well as the family members who showed up in the story. 

It did feel like the book was more of a novella than a full novel. The first half of the book especially felt a little abrupt with James, switching his character rather quickly. Based on the acknowledgments at the end though and what Ms Matthews was going thru, it makes perfect sense. As always, enjoyed it a lot regardless. 

This was so confusing - both in the writing style that was either like a run-on sentence or just total rabbit trailing, and in the setup where you didn’t know what in the world was going on until halfway thru. I get that it was trying to be intriguing and create mystery, but I didn’t even have any context to what sort dystopian world I was in - what was going on that the MCs DID have knowledge about. You just got dropped into this ambiguous setting with nothing for the longest time. 

Also, the memories or flashbacks was a strange setup because I didn’t feel like it lended itself to much of the current story or character development. The predatory sexual abuse situation in the past lended to some of the shame processing and response but even that wasn’t really explored in the men’s friendship like it could have been for it to have felt purposeful enough to be in the story. 

All in all it could have been really interesting if it fleshed out the dystopian setting and scenario, but I just lost interest or lost the plot during most of it. 

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are mine. 

Liked the premise of nice guys vs trust issues and working thru them in a difficult situation. Thought it was well done and well written. 

I liked both characters of Mac and Anna and the character development, especially that they weren’t petty like some friends-to-lovers are when things don’t go their way in books. Also enjoyed the peripheral characters. I think that makes the book more. 

I liked the setting of WW2 in Algiers since I haven’t read more than a blip in that ww2 location. The basis of the mystery and the WAACs was interesting and lended to the setting, and what the MPs were dealing with beyond just the fighting and war. 

It oddly felt very repetitive, especially in the dialogue. And I felt that the characters, however, were a bit flat and lacked a lot of depth, or at the very least lacked information. It felt like walking in on a conversation halfway in progress already, and I never felt like it fleshed anyone out, include Dottie. It was more about the action/mystery with little investment in the people. I kept losing interest without the character development to really anchor me, despite the history that I enjoyed. 

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are mine.

Cute and lighthearted. It was a fun fake-dating scenario and an easy read.