lilibetbombshell's Reviews (2.79k)

I started off having issues with the POV and chapter end notes (which I don’t like in my fiction books), but by 53% I was bored to tears. 

If you liked Johanna van Veen’s debut novel, My Darling, Dreadful Thing and would’ve even stuck around had things gotten bloodier, weirder, and more sexual, then you’re going to love Blood on Her Tongue. 

I’m telling you all, at about 22% of the way through this book I found myself saying, “Johanna van Veen, you filthy lil’ hussy!”

I love a great twin story, and BoHT delivers one full of that tremendous twin attachment, sibling infighting, family superstitions and lore, avarice, manipulation, grief, weaponized emotions, infidelity, secrets, lies, domestic abuse, gaslighting, misogyny, violence, and forced medicating. Oh, and we can’t forget the bog body. 

If My Darling, Dreadful Thing felt almost like a fever dream at some points, Blood on Her Tongue feels like a blood-soaked gothic horror film in technicolor. Nothing but the reddest of reds would do to match the rage and pain the women in this book both experience and mete out. Sometimes it just feels good to gorge yourself on the violence. 4⭐️

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Body Horror/Feminist Horror/Gothic Fiction/Historical Horror/Horror/LGBTQ Horror/Sapphic

At 30% through the thought of spending any more time in the head of the narrator made me want to hit my head on something. No thanks. 

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

That’s a lesson Aurelia is going to learn the hard way in this book, and yes that means you’re going to want to pay attention to your TW/CWs before going in. You’re also going to want to make sure knowledge of the previous book is fresh in your mind because this book picks up immediately where book three left off without mercy. 

Her Tortured Beasts matches the energy of its title: it’s a beast of a book at 555 pages and because of how much happens in those pages and it’s tortured because Aurelia and her mates all see some truly dark and tortured times. It’s really hard to say anything more without spoiling the book for those who are really going to care about reviews of this book, which are those who already know about this series and have been waiting on tenterhooks for the next installment (like me), but I can tell you Bali hasn’t let us down and this book hits on every level. It’s intense in every way, dark, emotional, painful, and just did everything I wanted and needed it to do. 5⭐️

I was provided a copy of this title by the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: 5 Star Review/Action Adventure/Book Series/Dark Romance/Romantasy/Found Family/Shifter Romance/Paranormal Romance/Spice Level 2/Why Choose Romance

I just didn’t vibe with this book in the way I thought I would. The writing was fine. The plotting was fine. Everything about it was fine, and I think that was the problem. It just didn’t engage me. I wasn’t hooked in at any point in time. I finished it because I wanted to see what the twist/turn was, but I was largely bored and fell asleep twice. I’m not done with Fracassi at all, but this book just wasn’t my jam. 

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. All reviews rated three stars or under will not appear on my social media. Thank you.

I can’t quite reconcile the writing in this book coming from the same mind that wrote Juniper and Thorn and The Wolf and the Woodsman. I know not every book can be a banger. I know not every book is going to match a reader’s tastes (after all, I wasn’t a fan of Lady Macbeth but I could still appreciate the lovely writing style, world building, deliberately bleak narrative, and poetic prose); however, I didn’t think a book about five books in to an impressive and lauded catalog could feel like an underwhelming and underdeveloped YA debut novel. 

I almost DNFd this book several times, but I stuck with it because I liked the plot. I liked the story it seemed to keep trying to tell. I kept hoping it would get better or something would happen and I would be wowed. Instead, this book came in mild and left just as mild. 

From a first act that takes entirely too much time setting events up and fails to engage the reader in the story, to a sapphic romance that made no sense to me (and that was one of the parts I was looking forward to most), to dialogue so cringey I actually physically cringed, this book just didn’t hit. 

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. All reviews rated three stars or lower will not appear on my social media. Thank you.