howlinglibraries's Reviews (1.85k)

#1: Stalking Jack the Ripper ★★★★★
#2: Hunting Prince Dracula ★★★★★
#3: Escaping From Houdini ★★★★★

Let me tell you guys, I have been dying to post this review! It’s been a few months since I read this one, but the publisher did request that I wait to post my thoughts until close to the book’s release, and naturally, I obliged. Now that I can finally gush freely with you all, I have to tell you that I adore this series. It is such a fun roller coaster of emotions and suspense, and I honestly think Kerri could write a dozen books following the adventures of Audrey and Thomas, and I would happily read each and every one of them.

He flashed a quick grin. “A lifetime full of surprises, remember, Wadsworth?”
“Indeed.” I could not imagine a future that didn’t include unwinding each secret he possessed.

Just the same as in the past two installments, my favorite parts are each and every moment in which Audrey and Thomas are alone, whether they’re swapping flirty banter, admiring one another’s intellect, sneaking steamy moments in hidden corners, or confessing sweet, tender emotions and desires. That said, this installment relies less on relationship building and more on suspense, intrigue, and a bit of con work.

“Truth is often compared to a blade. I question those who marvel when it pricks.”

What I expect to be a controversial topic is Audrey’s behavior in this book, which I ultimately loved, despite struggling with at first. Escaping fell slightly below Hunting Prince Dracula in terms of enjoyment for me because of her actions, which I hold conflicting feelings about: on the one hand, her deceit is heartbreaking as we see the pain it causes her loved ones, but on the other, Audrey proves herself as a bright young woman who has come to recognize that she has to figure things out for herself and to see if she’s settling, or truly on the path she needs to be on. That said, I think readers everywhere will be pleased with the end of her curious emotional journey.

“Hope is an invisible, but mighty force. Don’t dismiss its power.”

On a less conflicting note, let me tell you, the setting is this book is fantastic; it is so delightful and intriguing. Nothing is ever quite what it seems to be on the ship, and there’s a lot of world-building for the circus and its performers that lends to an immersive, captivating arena for the murders.

“Miss Audrey Rose Wadsworth, conqueror of my soul—you are an absolute fiend. You’d like to flout tradition simply because of your need for my body.” He held a hand over his heart. “I swear I have never loved you more.”

As for my favorite aspect of the series, Thomas: he has developed into this delightfully kind creature when it comes to his love for Audrey, but his humor and snark are still fully present, as is his brilliant wit. Thomas is truly one of my favorite YA love interests of all time, because not only is he funny, charming, and cute—he’s also incredibly respectful and in awe of Audrey’s talents, and even when it breaks his heart, he’s fully prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure that she feels free to make the choices she needs to make. I just love him so, so much.

“Swords, secrets, and stolen kisses.”

Finally, our newest prominent player: Mephistopheles, the ring-leader of the traveling show. I know that there have been some mixed feelings about him from other ARC reviewers, but I have to say that, despite some of the really twisted things he does, I thought he was a phenomenal addition to the story. He’s got this moral greyness to him that you can never quite determine the shade of, and his motives are rarely, if ever, clear.

“You speak the language of my complicated heart, Wadsworth. I am a very lucky man.”
I hoped he still believed that once I’d confessed my morning activities in full.

Genuinely, I am so interested in seeing what the general consensus is when the finished release rolls around and reviews start to roll in, because I think Kerri made a lot of risky moves while writing this story (which paid off). I definitely looked at Audrey Rose a little differently by the time I closed the cover on this one (not in a bad way, though), and I wonder if it will shift even further once the finished ending comes out—because, in case you didn’t know, the ARCs don’t have the final ending. Kerri wrote a fake ending for the advance copies, which gives me the perfect excuse to reread this beauty when my pre-order arrives in September.

I’ll come back and update this review after I’ve finished, to let you all know if any of my thoughts have changed, but as it stands, I can promise you that I will still be recommending this series to anyone and everyone, as it is such a fun read with a truly lovable cast of characters.

All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to Jimmy Patterson Books for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

You can find this review and more on my blog, or you can follow me on twitter, bookstagram, or facebook!

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Buddy read with Kayla and Amy!

I don’t read a lot of middle grade novels, and when I do, they’re generally exclusively fantasy or historical fiction. When I think of MG contemporary novels, it’s not typically a book I’m going to reach for. That said, I have adored Ashley Herring Blake’s YA novels so tremendously (as you can see from my raving reviews of How to Make a Wish and Girl Made of Stars), that I knew I would love this little MG story, too, and was elated when she sent me an ARC.

How was Ivy supposed to know how to handle all these feelings for June, all these feelings at all, if everything she saw and read about and heard about was all boy-girl, girl-boy?

Ivy is such a precious, believable little character. She is so kind and loving, but struggles with a myriad of emotions that anyone who’s ever lived through the preteen years can relate to. She is jealous of her new baby siblings, misses her mother’s undivided attention, sees her father as her hero, and wants nothing more than to go back to calling her big sister Layla her best friend. There’s just one thing about Ivy that makes her feel a little bit different from the other kids her age.

Her drawings didn’t embarrass her; they confused her. They scared her. Because she never wanted to draw a boy in those treehouses and she didn’t really understand why.

Ivy is only interested in other girls, and at the time that we meet her, she’s still questioning a little bit, but mostly just scared to admit her orientation to herself, much less the people who love her. When she develops a crush on a classmate, June, she realizes quickly that there’s a name for the confusion she’s been feeling, but her entire life is already in upheaval and she doesn’t quite know how to cope.

Normally, Layla was a good sister. Normally, she was Ivy’s friend. But normally had been sucked away by stormy drawings and tears and tornadoes.

One of the scariest aspects of coming out, for June, is her big sister’s opinion on the matter. A recent fight between Layla and her best friend – also a queer girl – has left Ivy feeling unsafe among her own family. Ashley Herring Blake weaves this beautiful portrayal of how painful it is to feel unaccepted by one’s own loved ones, and how terrifying it can be to know that a part of your identity, something you could never change even if you wanted to, could make them see you differently or love you less. I’ve been there and felt those fears, as I know most queer individuals have, and it positively made my heart ache for Ivy every time the topic was breached.

Boys ask girls to dances. Girls ask boys to dances. Ivy tried to remember a time when that didn’t happen at their school – when it was a boy and a boy or a girl and a girl – but she couldn’t.

Ivy also suffers a lot of frustrations due to the utter lack of normalization and acceptance of queer individuals in her rural Georgia town, and from one Georgia gal to another, I related so hard to everything that pained her in this aspect. I grew up knowing so few outed queer individuals that I could’ve counted them on one hand until reaching my late teens, and I saw so little representation of LGBTQ+ relationships that I didn’t even understand my own desires for a very long time. Had I been shown how healthy and normal it was for a relationship to be comprised of anything other than one cis man and one cis woman, I can’t imagine how much it would’ve improved my self-worth and views on the world as a kid.

“It wasn’t easy being a queer girl in a small southern town, much less a black queer girl in the South.”

Despite how abnormal queerness may feel to Ivy in the town she lives in, though, there is a bright light in the dark: a young black lesbian named Robin, who takes Ivy under her wing as soon as she notices that there’s something Ivy hasn’t quite come to terms with. Robin was my favorite character by far, because she was so maternal and kind, and reminded me so much of not only a figure I wished desperately I’d had as a teen, but also the kind of woman I desperately want to be for the children in my life, present or future.

“It’ll get easier.”
“Most things do.”

Robin never made Ivy feel silly, out of place, or as though she were overreacting in her fears and confusions. She also never pushed Ivy into labeling herself, and encouraged her to take some time to figure things out, explaining that there was nothing wrong with questioning your sexuality or abstaining from labels. I honestly lived for this character and everything she represented, as well as the fact that her own back story showed Ivy it was possible for a queer woman in the rural south to grow up, be happy, have a wonderful relationship, and embrace her sexuality. Ashley Herring Blake understands that it’s so incredibly crucial that queer books showcase the fact that LGBTQ+ individuals can have happy endings, too.

It was like they’d forgotten they weren’t alone in this. At least, they’d forgotten they weren’t supposed to be.

Finally, more than any other topic touched on in this beautiful little tale, I adored the fact that we see Ivy learn that the people who genuinely love you, and matter, will accept and support and love you, no matter what your orientation or identity falls under. She has such an incredible support system, and though they are imperfect, they do everything they can to fix their mistakes and to make her feel safe and warm.

Funny, Ivy thought, all the things people could survive that they never imagined they could.

I am so delighted to have had the chance to read an early copy of this book, and desperately hope that it is placed in every library, every school, and on the shelves of every child who has ever questioned their sexuality, or feared how the world will react to their identity. Ivy shows kids that being queer doesn’t have to mean a life of misery and fear and hiding, and that even if your friends and loved ones don’t always understand right away, if they truly need to be in your life, they will stand by you and treat you with the respect and love you deserve.

All quotes are taken from an unfinished ARC and may differ from the finished publication. Thank you to Ashley Herring Blake and Little Brown Books for Young Readers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

You can find this review and more on my blog, or you can follow me on twitter, bookstagram, or facebook!

#1 And I Darken ★★★★★
#2 Now I Rise ★★★★★
#3 Bright We Burn ★★★☆☆

This series has been an incredible journey, and I was both eager and terrified to see how it would end. As many of you already know, I tend to avoid series finales like the plague. They’re almost always my least favorite part of a series, probably because I like very particular types of endings where all the loose ends are tied and everyone has completed their tasks—and these are rarely synonymous with happy, fan-servicing endings, which is what this felt like to me.

She could not sleep in those stone rooms, empty and yet still crowded with the ghosts of all the princes who had come before her.

Lada has been one of my favorite heroines since I first read And I Darken, but she was perhaps my greatest struggle in this installment. You see, Lada has always been vicious, but she’s been clever about it; she’s made a habit of outwitting everyone around her, constantly, and her intentions have always been fair: to pull Wallachia out of the mud and see her people thrive without the shackles put upon them by men like the boyars and Mehmed.

After all, fire and blood and death were nothing to a country led by a dragon.

In this finale, something feels lost in her character arc to me. Gone is the conniving yet brilliant young woman who took from the rich to give to the poor, and in her place is a sloppy warlord who destroys innocents recklessly and stumbles into one trap after another. I understand character development and that sometimes, the characters we love become less than what they were, but I believe with my whole heart that this was the wrong direction to take Lada’s story in.

Someday Radu would not long for a time when he was certain things were terrible but had no idea just how much worse they were about to get.

And then, there’s Radu, who I actually admitted in my Now I Rise review was one of the most infuriating characters I’ve ever met in my life. He makes almost exclusively terrible decisions because of his affections for Mehmed, and he is blind to the entire world around him whenever he is in the sultan’s presence. But, you know what else I mentioned in that review: I liked that about him. I enjoyed the drama he brought to the pages. That was no longer the case by the end of Bright We Burn.

He could not have conversations about his future as though his past were not looped around his neck like a noose, choking him with regret and sorrow.

As we near the end of the story, Radu finally begins to see the error of his ways, yet he doesn’t do anything to fix his mistakes. Instead, he doubles down, and while I won’t spoil the action for you, I will say that the direction he takes shocked me in the most awful way. Much like with Lada, I felt like I was reading an entirely different character from the one I’d grown to know in the first two books.

Radu expected to find his friend angry. Instead, he found Mehmed sitting on a pillow, staring up at the ceiling of the tent with a bemused smile.
“I think she missed us,” he said.

The one thing that remains entirely the same in Bright We Burn is Mehmed, who is still this insufferable, disgusting cretin of a man. I can’t say anything at all about how I feel regarding Mehmed without spoiling the entire ending, but if you’ve read it, feel free to DM me—I have quite a lot of feelings about his story.

He had changed his faith, his life, even his name, but he could not change or escape his sister.

There are a million other things I’d like to fuss about, but they’re all spoilers, so I’ll leave them all be; however, if you’ve read it, there’s a particular incident that occurs with Lada that is intended to be a “twist”, and it not only frustrated me that I predicted it so long ago, but it also positively enraged me with how she handled it. (Again, feel free to DM—lots of rage to get out over this one.)

“It seems to me she has tremendous regard for blood. She simply prefers it spilled on the ground.”

All in all, this wasn’t a horrible book on its own; as you can see, I still thought it was worth a solid 3 stars. That said, it was one of the most disappointing series finales I have ever read, in terms of the direction the story took. At the time that I’m writing this review, however, my opinion is definitely not the common consensus, so if you have enjoyed the series thus far, I do strongly urge you to pick this up and give it a chance.

All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to my friend Lynette for sending me this ARC!

You can find this review and more on my blog, or you can follow me on twitter, bookstagram, or facebook!

I try not to give books genuinely harsh reviews unless they’re downright offensive. If you look at my 1-star reviews, almost all of them are because the book was incredibly problematic, and that’s not an issue with this book (there are a few issues, but nothing blaring). I made a concerted effort to round this up to 2 stars, but while jotting down the outline of this review, I realized it didn’t stand a chance. I actually tried to write a comprehensive, full review for this book, but after it reached several paragraphs of ranting, I decided to just make a list of all the reasons why I hate this book.

• The dialogue is incredibly stilted and has no natural flow. It’s honestly downright awkward to read.

• Kaelyn, the narrator, repeats and contradicts herself constantly.

• The MC makes herself out as a lonely old woman recovering from an abusive relationship or something, when we find out she’s 21, her only relationship was when she was 16, the whole thing was a bizarre misunderstanding, and, oh, right, they never stopped loving each other. Of course.

• There’s a side character at the beginning of the book who we are told Kaelyn hardly knows, and has barely spoken to, but two chapters later, she begins referring to the character as her “best friend”. And that character proceeds to almost never be called by name, she’s just “my best friend” or “my BFF”. Despite, you know… the girls hardly knowing each other. Oh, and Kaelyn slut-shames the “BFF” at the beginning of the book.

• Hoooooooly Mary Sues, Batman! This MC is completely inept, but considers herself a gift to the world of ghost slaying, and we are constantly reminded of how powerful she is, how strong her “senses” are, etc.—despite the fact that she literally fails at 99% of the tasks she sets out to do in this story.

• Plot twists! Everywhere! And none of them make any sense or get any explanations!

• We’re expected to believe that Kaelyn’s mother has been dead for, like, a decade, and CPS never took this little girl in? Also, ghosts can’t touch things and non-slayer people, except her mom makes her pancakes every morning?

• Characters constantly start to say terrible, foreboding things before being cut off and then it never gets brought up again. WHY DID YOU START THE SENTENCE, THEN?

• Every single side character is horrible, one-dimensional, boring, plain, and overly simplified. There is literally no exception to this statement.

• So many things happen that just aren’t realistic, but not even in a paranormal way. Like, Kaelyn says she’s never had alcohol, but then downs half a tumbler of whiskey and says, “Mm, tastes good!” … what? Have you ever had whiskey? Nobody likes cheap whiskey on their first try. (Most people don’t like cheap whiskey on their hundredth try.) (I’m going to stop being so petty now.)

The only thing I liked about this book was that it was an incredibly quick read, but even that was a double-edged sword, because I have a hard time DNFing short books (“it’s only gonna take me another 30 minutes!”) and then I finish the book and think, “Okay, but, every minute I spent on that book was still a waste.”

Like… I honestly wanted to like this book. I was pumped for it. I loved the cover, I loved the idea of it, and I was like, “Yeah! Finally gonna start reading some new adult ARCs! Finally gonna get some good ghost hunting stories started!” And then this book just fell flat in literally every single possible way I could ever have imagined, and I am so sad that I ever read it at all.

When I heard this retelling of Anastasia was releasing, it immediately piqued my interest – even more so, once I heard there was a human/robot love story, because, uh, what?! – so I was incredibly excited to check this one out. There are some fun, unique ideas at play here (which is crucial for a retelling!), but unfortunately, there’s also quite a bit to unpack. I found myself trudging through this book and almost DNFed it several times, but I ultimately decided to finish it so that I could review it properly.

“To those who set sail into the night, may the stars keep them steady…”
“And the iron keep them safe.”

→ world-building & story-telling ←
What could’ve been this book’s greatest strength ended up being its biggest flaw: while the writing itself isn’t bad, it feels inexperienced, and the world-building leaves a lot to be desired. There are so many fantastically cool ideas thrown into play, such as a character who can see a person’s fate if he touches them – but we’re constantly left wondering why his people used to see fates, why they can no longer use their powers, why he is the last of them, and so on. We’re given a thread, with nowhere to follow it to.

It was more than a promise – it was an oath. Unbreakable. Strong like iron and steady like stars.

Likewise, there’s a running theme throughout the book in which people swear “on iron and stars”, and this is described as some sort of unbreakable vow, but we never learn why it is so important, what magic surrounds this particular phrase to enforce it, or what would happen to a person who broke their vow. Despite it being such an important notion, it is tossed around constantly and very quickly loses any form of impact.

Finally, my two biggest complaints about the writing:

1) There are too many different perspectives to cycle through. There are four narrators in this story, and it is not executed well.

2) There is a lot of senseless death in this book. It’s not a matter of violent content – this book isn’t one I’d consider particularly brutal – but it’s a matter of the fact that most of the deaths were rash, sudden, and pointless. By the end, it felt like they were being written in for shock value, which quickly becomes cheap.

No. He did not want. Could not want. But he did. He wanted so badly to exist a little longer beside her.

→ Ana & Di ←
Two of our main characters are the infamous human/robot duo I mentioned: Ana, the human girl, and D09 or Di, the robot. I know the entire idea of this coupling feels really gross to a lot of people I’ve spoken to about this book, and I can see why, but for me, personally, it was the most interesting aspect of the story. From the start, Di is capable of more sentient thought and emotion than any of the other Metals (robots) in their world, and he only grows more and more human-like as the story progresses. My favorite part of the entire story, by far, was watching him learn how to cope with human emotions and desires.

(Side note here: he also has a sidekick in the form of a little bot named EOS, who Di affectionately calls his can opener, and this little bot is somehow the best part of the entire book. He’s precious.)

Her heart beat, and his wires hummed, and they were Ana and Di – and there were no words for that.

Ana, on the other hand, is a far less interesting narrator. It’s not that she’s bad, problematic, offensive, or unlikeable… she’s just boring. There’s nothing complex to her and she is never really fleshed out. She’s self-contradicting – especially in the ending, to an infuriating degree – and never feels like a narrator. Despite it being her story, she never held the spotlight.

If he believed in the Moon Goddess, he’d be praying right now. He’d be praying really, really hard. And he’d be praying something like, Merciful Goddess, if you exist, please hand my ass to me some other day. I don’t want to die. I haven’t kissed Jax yet.

→ Robb ←
When it comes to the main narrators and their respective levels of interesting, complex personalities, Robb is, sadly, not far above Ana on my list. Again, there’s nothing to dislike about him, but there’s nothing to like, either. He has the potential for an incredibly sad, intriguing back story with his search for his missing/presumed dead father, and his over-bearing and abusive mother, or even his terrifying big brother… but it felt like we were only ever allowed to skim the surface of any of these intriguing things. Robb’s character is the main aspect that makes me think, had this book been limited to one, or even two narrators, it would’ve been so much better, because with the constant switching, we just didn’t really get to know anyone very well.

All fates in the universe connected in a river, and that river flowed only one way.

→ Jax ←
Finally, what seems to be the fan favorite of the narrators: Jax, the Solani pilot with stars in his veins. Jax was a major redeeming quality in this book for me, until we reached a point where we got to spend very little time with him, and the time we did get to spend with him was mostly used up on repetitive mooning over another character. While the romance Jax finds himself in is cute, it’s also fairly insta-lovey, which put a damper on the entire couple for me. That said, Jax is a really fun and enjoyable character, and if I had to pick any one character who I would’ve liked to have read this entire story through the singular perspective of, it would be a toss-up between D09/Di and this guy.

“I’ll always come back for you,” she whispered, reaching up on her tiptoes to press her forehead against his cool metal one. “I promise you on iron and stars.”

→ diversity ←
There is one positive note that I can’t finish this review without touching on, and that’s the diverse cast of characters we get to meet throughout the story. Not only is there a main gay couple, there’s also a lesbian side couple (and they are fantastic – could we please have seen more of them?!). Multiple characters are described as being people of color, and there’s even some disability rep! All of my issues with the story itself pushed aside, I genuinely appreciate how normalized Ashley Poston made all of these diverse characters feel in the context of their world.

“Because I will follow you anywhere,” he insisted. “To the ends of the galaxy, if I have to. I want to exist where you exist, and that is enough.”

→ final thoughts ←
At the end of the day, I really wanted to enjoy this book, but I had to look at it honestly and admit that it was a 2-star read for me. I considered rounding up to 3 for the sake of the diverse rep, but the fact that it took me over a month to trudge through what should’ve been a really quick read made it impossible for me to justify upping my rating. If you enjoy sci-fi and Anastasia retellings, or normalized diverse rep in the YA SF/F field, I would say to pick this up and give it a try. As for me, I do own a copy of another of Ashley’s books, but I don’t think I’ll be rushing to pick it up.

I have no idea if this book is a series starter or a standalone, as it totally feels like a series starter but, at the time that I’m writing this review, I haven’t heard anything about it continuing as a series. I personally absolutely hated the cliffhanger ending of this book, and will not be picking up any sequels.

All quotes are taken from an ARC and may not match the finished publication. Thank you to Balzer + Bray for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review!

You can find this review and more on my blog, or you can follow me on twitter, bookstagram, or facebook!

Let me say, first and foremost, that I am such a total sucker for books revolving around the ocean, whether it involves pirates, mermaids, sirens, sea creatures, or any mix of those things. When I first heard about this story of a vicious siren chasing down a pirate prince who slays her kind, it skyrocketed to the top of my list of most anticipated releases for 2018. I had every gut feeling in the world that I was going to positively adore this novel, and as you’ll see in my review, I was not disappointed.

It’s the princes who hold the allure. In their youth. In the allegiance of their people. In the promise of the leader they could one day become. They are the next generation of rules, and by killing them, I kill the future. Just as my mother taught me.

→ Lira ←
While the story alternates between two perspectives, the first one that we are introduced to is Lira, also known as the Prince’s Bane for her cruel slayings of princes. As the daughter of the Sea Queen, her task is to rip the still-beating heart from one prince on each of her birthdays. My favorite thing about Lira, right off the bat, was the fact that she wasn’t some gooey, sweet young girl on the inside; she is unapologetically vicious and coldhearted, which we quickly see is the end result of a lifetime of abuse from her mother.

Technically, I’m a murderer, but I like to think that’s one of my better qualities.

Lira’s interactions with Elian, once she finds herself stranded on his pirate ship, are the definition of enemies-to-lovers behavior: she’s feisty, angry, mean, and conniving, without ever going overboard enough to become genuinely unlikeable. The fact that she has such a difficult home life awaiting her under the sea makes it hard to view her as an outright “villain”, and at many times, I found myself struggling to determine who I wanted to root for: the cutthroat siren, or the vengeance-seeking prince.

In my heart, I’m as wild as the ocean that raised me.

→ Prince Elian ←
Early in the story, we learn that Lira isn’t the only one trying to live up to their parents’ expectations; while Elian’s family wants him to embrace the kingdom and his future throne, all the young prince wants is his ship, his crew, and the ocean breeze in his sails. I have a total soft spot for these sorts of pirates, whose days are filled less with pillaging and plundering, and more with adventures, heists, and a healthy appreciation for families that are composed not of blood, but of loyalty and friendship. Elian is the single most lovable pirate lord I’ve ever read about, and his crew is an extension of that. They are so fun, snarky, and loyal to a fault.

Royalty cannot be unmade. Birth rights cannot be changed. Hearts are forever scarred by our true nature.

Much like I enjoyed the three-dimensionality of Lira’s spiky exterior, I loved the fact that Elian could have so easily been degraded to a run-of-the-mill “good guy”, but is instead a fantastic antihero. He’s clever, a little callous, and capable of fantastic scheming and thievery. He’s a prince, and arguably the lesser of the evils in this batch of characters, but the author never lets us forget that he is still a pirate – not a hero. (I’d also like to take a moment to point out here that Elian is either black or biracial – we know that his father is black, but his mother’s ethnicity is never confirmed, as far as I recall – which I thought was a fantastic reprieve from the stereotypical “Prince Eric”-inspired guy in stories like this.)

“I’d be flattered,” I say, “that you would look for an excuse just to hold my hand.”
“Perhaps I’m just looking for an excuse to shoot you.”

→ romance ←
There are three things that I absolutely never get tired of in romantic subplots: 1) good, witty banter, 2) enemies-to-lovers tropes, and 3) slow burns. This book checks all three of those boxes magnificently. The back-and-forth chatter between Lira and Elian is so fun and sharp, and the way they shift from distrust and a touch of loathing to something more is so delightful to watch. I was rooting so hard for both of them not only to succeed, but to find a way to succeed together. Best of all, this particular dose of enemies-to-lovers doesn’t breach into abuse territory or a gross power imbalance, as these tropes are so prone to falling into in a lot of YA/NA titles.

Every queen began as a siren, and when the crown passed to her, its magic stole her fins and left in their place mighty tentacles that held the strength of armies.

→ sea lore ←
I don’t think I could pick just one favorite thing about this story, but if I had to make a list of the traits that would tie for first place, the lore would absolutely make it into that tie. The sirens aren’t depicted as some frail, beautiful creatures; while gorgeous, they’re otherworldly, haunting, wild, fanged things who show no mercy and are powerful enough to wipe out grown men with a single blow. The mermaids are differentiated solidly from the sirens, as inhuman, grotesque creatures with unhinged jaws and bizarre bodies – they’re fabulously creepy and dark, and I loved every single interaction with them.

The truth of what I am has become a nightmare.

While this story never feels like a simple retelling, there’s one aspect that definitely paid homage to some very old and well-known stories, and that is the Sea Queen. The backstory given explains that the power of becoming queen turns sirens into these terrifying, tentacled beings that are incredibly powerful and magical. Lira’s own mother wields her power with pure brutality, and while I won’t spoil for you the curse she places upon her daughter, it’s a delightful twist on the classic tale and made me downright giddy.

I’ve become so used to being brutal, that I almost forget it didn’t begin as a choice.

→ final thoughts ←
As I mentioned in the preface of this review, To Kill a Kingdom was, hands down, one of my most anticipated releases of 2018, and not a single sentence of it disappointed me. I was captivated from the very first page, and am so delighted to have been granted the opportunity to read it early. I buddy read it with a few friends, who I’ll link to below, and if it tells you anything about how wonderful this story was, every single one of us 5-starred this book at the end of the reading. I think I was only a few chapters into the ARC when I pre-ordered my finished copy, because this is a beautiful stand-alone that I could easily see myself picking up over and over again.

Content warnings: abuse, violence, murder, self-harm, sexual harassment.

All quotes are taken from an unfinished ARC and may differ from the final publication. Thank you to Feiwel & Friends for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

You can find this review and more on my blog, or you can follow me on twitter, bookstagram, or facebook!

#1 The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion ★★★★★
#2 The Barrow Will Send What it May ★★★★★

”It’s strange how quickly it’s normal, there being magic in the world. It’s strange how little it changes about who we are as people.”

As a long-time horror fan, the biggest complaint I have had about the genre is how exclusive and problematic it can be. For a long time, it’s been really rare that you would find a horror book (or novella) that didn’t feature only white, straight characters—much less that you would find a story going out of its way to include a vast array of diverse characters and political commentary. When I heard that this series was a queer horror/fantasy storyline? I had to have it, and I was not disappointed in the slightest.

”Clay, he was traveling to try to find home, I was traveling because traveling was home. He wanted something like this, I was afraid of something like this. Someplace that would lure me away from the road. I’m more afraid of growing roots than I’m afraid of anything.”

Danielle’s story works perfectly as a novella, because it drops you right into the action. As soon as she reaches Freedom, Iowa, she’s immediately caught up in a whirlwind of terror, magic, uncertainty, and death. Even though there’s a lot going on, Margaret Killjoy still manages to pack a tremendous amount of backstory and character development into these 112 pages. Danielle is a fantastic anarchistic punk character, complete with a complete disregard for the system, a striking sense of self-awareness, and absolute horror at the thought of ever settling down.

Simple as that, we walked out the door. No money, no accounting, no ration cards, nothing. Trust alone. I’d found a town that worked on trust alone.

Not only do we get to learn so much about these fantastic characters, but Freedom itself is seriously a complete utopia. Everyone is so accepting and caring of one another, and it honestly made my heart ache to think that I don’t know if I’ll ever see a world as open-minded and kind as Freedom, Iowa. There are people of all sexualities and gender identities, all races and ages, slim and thick, short and tall. There are queer people everywhere, and it’s so normalized that nobody feels forced to put a label on their own sexuality or explain who they are or why. One of the very first pieces of dialogue in the story is a character introducing themselves and immediately following it up with, “What are your pronouns?” It was so beautiful and varied and I loved every moment of it.

”So yeah, welcome to Freedom, Iowa. For the past year, we’ve had this benevolent, murderous spirit watching over us. Which is weird, but it’s gone fine.”

Of course, at its core, this is still a horror novella, and it does have some creepy settings and moments that ticked all of my aesthetical checkboxes. There’s a creepy, blood-red, three-antlered deer/demon named Uliksi, who runs with a horde of undead animals of varying species, each with open, empty ribcages. He literally kills people who usurp power over others or bring harm to others, and it helps to keep the town safe from would-be thieves, rapists, murderers, and more, as everyone is stricken by the fear of Uliksi’s judgment falling upon them. It sounds harsh, but as Danielle muses at one point, it gets the job done, and its benefits vastly outweigh its costs.

I wish he’d listened to his own advice, though. I wish he’d kept going. I wish he’d found his way through.

Finally, the last thing that I adored about this book was its stance on suicide. We learn quickly that Danielle’s mission is inspired by a hope of learning why her best friend killed himself, but there is never a single moment of suicide-shaming or mental health-related ableism. When another characters asks Danielle if she’s angry, her unhesitant response is that she’s not angry at her friend, just the world that brought him to that desperate state. While the story does not glorify the act of suicide at all, I think it’s so crucial that it offers this kind take on it: while it’s devastating for those left behind, it’s not an act performed out of malice or cowardice. It’s an act of desperation.

Because he’d decided Freedom was home, and he couldn’t come back. That’s what having a home will do to you. Maybe.

I genuinely cannot explain to you guys, as a queer horror fan, how much this novella’s existence and this author’s work means to me. It was so wonderful to finally see myself represented in a horror story that never vilified me and people like me, or any other marginalized groups. On top of that, the writing itself is just so enjoyable and fluid, the characters are lovable (especially Danielle’s found family, who offer fantastic banter and I hope to spend much more time with in future installments), and like I said, it’s so delightfully macabre in its aesthetic. I am so happy that I took the time to pick up this novella, and I cannot wait to read the sequel!

#1 The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion ★★★★★
#2 The Barrow Will Send What it May ★★★★★

Barrow: an endless spirit who stands at the gate between the living and the dead, waiting to tear it from its hinges.

First of all, I would just like to say that I absolutely love the setup of this series—each installment being its own individual little mystery, with new locations, characters, and terrors—and I would honestly be so happy to read a dozen of these novellas. I already enjoyed Danielle’s narrative in book 1, but it’s even more authentic and lovable in this one, as she delves into her inner monologue a bit more and faces down some of her own personal obstacles and flaws.

“We ask for good strangers.”
“We ask for the barrow to send what it may.”
“We ask that ill eyes pass us over.”
“We ask for the dead to guard us.”
“We ask that sorrow be held at bay.”

Not only do we get to explore this new adventure with Danielle’s found family (Brynn, Vulture, and the Days), we also get to meet a handful of new people, including my personal faves: a couple of anarcho-punks who run a stolen library for a desolate old tourist trap town, with a secret occult library upstairs. I know I raved about the aesthetic behind The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion in that review, and while this book didn’t check as many of my boxes, I gotta say that I was living for the library setting.

Of all the ways to die, I think pummeled to death by trashy hetero romance novels might be the worst. Or best.

Much like its predecessor, this book offers a super diverse cast with a lot of normalization and talk about queer relationships, but it went a step further by adding in a couple of snarky, harmless remarks about cis/hetero individuals that reminded me so much of some of my friends. There’s never any vitriol behind any of it, but it was so entertaining and reminded me of something that came to mind while reading the first book: Margaret Killjoy is not writing to please the masses; she is writing to an audience of her peers, people who—in some small ways, at least—view the world in a similar manner to her, and I respect and love the hell out of her for it. It is so wonderful to feel so “seen” by an author, especially in the horror genre, where we rarely see authors who tackle these topics in a meaningful way.

It’s not really giving up our freedom to be close with people. Because freedom only exists in relation to other people. I thought I needed to be left alone. I just needed people. Good people.

Underneath all of the adventure and suspense and found family wonder going on in this story, there was also a really gorgeous, subtle development between Danielle and Brynn, and I was living for it. I am shipping this couple so hard by now, and I really love the slowness of its buildup. Brynn is absolutely precious, on top of it—she’s probably my favorite character of all, with her handsome, muscular little tattoo artist self.

“I would like the record to state I think this is metal as fuck.”

At the end of the day, I didn’t love this book quite as much as the first one in the series, but it’s like comparing a 4.75-star read to a 5-star one—this series still hits my checkboxes so hard, and I love these characters so much that I would happily read entire novellas just about them grocery shopping or meandering through the park. Margaret Killjoy has fully earned my affections, and I cannot wait to see what she comes up with next.

All quotes are taken from an ARC and may not match the final release. Thank you to Tor.com for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

You can find this review and more on my blog, or you can follow me on twitter, bookstagram, or facebook!

When I was sent an ARC of this novella by the publisher, I had never heard of the book (or author) before, but was incredibly eager to check it out once I learned it was being marketed as a hist-fic/sci-fi mashup with a sweet m/m romance! I honestly had no doubts that I would enjoy this novella, and if I were to base it just upon the writing itself - which is rather lovely - this rating would certainly be higher!

Unfortunately, I had two major problems with this novella:

1) I felt so incredibly lost while reading it. I honestly worried at one point that it was just me, but after looking at other reviews of this book, I feel confident when I say that this is a surprisingly difficult story to follow. It feels disjointed and non-linear in a disconcerting manner, which made it a bit of a chore to trudge through, despite having an interest foundation.

2) Perhaps the blurb on this book is misleading, or maybe it's my fault for having unfair expectations, but I was anticipating a story of two time traveling lovers trying to find one another through notes left in poetry books - not the recounting of a book-loving historian who keeps finding pieces of their letters and tries to connect the dots through those correspondences. While it's an interesting way to tell the story, I think I would have enjoyed it more if it had been what I expected, as it probably would've allowed me to emotionally connect to the characters and story more.

All in all, it's a unique book, and if it sounds like something you're interested in, I would definitely give it a try, but I don't think I was exactly the right audience for this novella.

Thank you to Tor.com for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review!

You can find this review and more on my blog, or you can follow me on twitter, bookstagram, or facebook!

I was actually in the process of rewriting my review policy and shutting down review requests from authors, when L. Austen Johnson approached me to ask if I’d be interested in reading her poetry collection. I was feeling so overwhelmed by the stack of books I needed to read, that I almost passed, but something about her really struck me, and I am so glad that it did, because this was a genuinely enjoyable little collection of poems.

Did I mention
That everyone she loves
But never knew
Lives there now,
In that poem,
In that ranch
Owned by someone new?

I don’t read a lot of poetry, but I read enough that I’ve come to expect a certain formula from contemporary poetry collections, which is why I was surprised (in the best way) by how refreshing and candid this writing style is. There’s none of the repetition and slowness that I find in a lot of poetry collections, and for it to be such a short book, it tackles so many important topics that more readers than not will be able to relate to, I think.

I want to ask if he knows what it’s like
to be known like this—by what needs fixing.
To be known as broken, perpetually waiting
for that man-made thing that can actually repair me.

While the collection is primarily composed of poems that relate to lost or unrequited love and being wounded by a romantic interest, the pieces that stuck out the most to me were actually the ones about chronic illness. I don’t know what the author’s daily life is like, and I won’t pretend that I can relate perfectly to the things she experiences, but as someone who has suffered from chronic pain problems for many years, I loved how understood I felt by many of these pieces.

I rise, at points,
with envy—what would
it feel like to sleep
through a night
with no turns, to
snuggle up with my bones,
to love my body
even when it’s
revolting?

To wonder what life would be like without our physical limitations is something that a great deal of people can relate to, but the author manages to put those feelings so perfectly into words—what would it be like to snuggle up with my own body? To love my body for everything it is, even when it causes me such heartache? These thoughts are bittersweet, but for such a widely known struggle, it’s not talked about often enough, and I endlessly appreciate L. Austen Johnson’s willingness to go there.

All in all, I definitely recommend this poetry collection, especially if the topics involved are familiar ones to you. I think the author is a natural and shows a delightful amount of potential, and I am very interested in seeing what she writes next!

All quotes are taken from an ARC and may not match the final release. Thank you to L. Austen Johnson and Gen Z Publishing for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

You can find this review and more on my blog, or you can follow me on twitter, bookstagram, or facebook!