** Thank you to Netgalley and Everlast Books/the author for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.**

Vibe/Mood: 1
Characters: 1
Plot: 1
Scratched my ADHD brain: .5
Hyperfixation Potential: .5

4/5 🌟

Blood and Empire is a promising start to a new epic fantasy series. 

I really enjoyed how it introduced us to Bethany’s world and how each character’s story is eventually intertwined with hers in some way. I also found the magic system regarding the Weaver and the gateways to be unique and not something that I’ve really seen before (unless you count D&D and Balder’s Gate 3, a.k.a. Gale and Mystra and the Weave.) 

I felt that the characters had depth to them, but I feel like there is more space to explore each of them and their motivations even more and I really am hoping that the next book goes deeper into what is going on and why they are doing the things they’re doing. 

I also liked the aspect of an unknown threat (the black scaly creatures) that may or may not unite all the different characters or cause them to further reinforce barriers between each other and even engage in war and conflict. 

I will definitely be reading the next one. 

*Thank you to Netgalley for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

Vibe/Mood: 1
Characters: 1
Plot: .5
Scratched my ADHD brain: 1
Hyperfixation Potential: 1

4.5/5 🌟

First and foremost: this is not your average contemporay romance and that’s what makes this more appealing. I really enjoyed being able to immerse into the world of D&D while also seeing the growth of Sadie as she worked through her burnout and learned more about herself and her path forward, as well as how Noah played a part in this and thus having their relationship grow both in-game and IRL. 

I don’t think that you ahve to have knowledge of D&D to still enjoy this story, but having that knowledge did make this a significantly more enjoyable story for me. 

This felt like a strong debut to me and I really look forward to whatever Lenora does next. 

SCREAMING. CRYING. THROWING UP. 

Kristy did it again. 😭💜

*Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

Vibe/Mood: .5
Characters: 1
Plot: .5
Scratched my ADHD brain: 1
Hyperfixation Potential: .5

3.5/5 🌟


The Tale of Kore was a unique read in that I went in expecting the romance angle of a HadesxPersephone retelling, but what I got was more of a philosophical, reflective character study of Corey and how her story intertwined more with and affected the world as a whole

(and tbh, Hades was just a supporting character in this, and I’m not mad about it.)

I’m not normally a fan

of amnesia as a device for a plot, but I think in this case, it was done well and made sense to the overall story being woven. (pun intended)

I also found the way the author wove different mythos together to create a larger overarching mythos for the cultures of Earth was neat and does support a lot of Classics academia belief that these ancient cultures had certain things more in common than not and provided a really interesting set up for the overall story of the novel. 

I had some issues with the writing, as there were clearly mistakes with character names (Cynthia and Claudia? Aiden and Hades?), and it kind of felt like the author couldn’t stick to one name for him even within the same scene, and it was mildly confusing. I also felt like there were parts where her prose was so well-written and lines that I loved and highlighted, but those would then be dampened by saying something like “pulling a Percy Jackson.” Like, it was trying to be academic and philosophical while also being easily digestible and contemporary. (Which, in hindsight, might make a lot of sense with the focus being on Corey and her being literally between two different worlds all her life.)  

Overall, I did enjoy my time reading it. It just needed some more editing and some assistance with pacing because the overall plot of Corey’s story was either too fast or not fast enough at times, and I almost put it down about halfway through. I am glad that I didn’t because I was very happy with the ending and how her story wrapped up.