lisaluvsliterature's Reviews (4.19k)

I’m sad that this is going to be the final book in this series, but I totally understand why as the author explains at the beginning of the book. I have loved getting back with these favorite characters and their next generation, and this one was just as great. I love how Crownover is able to infuse her stories with so much emotion, yet also more than just dark dramatic situations. There are sweet bits, and steamy bits, and even the occasional banter that is what I love. 

I feel like with Zowen and Aston’s story we got to see a little bit of almost all of the main characters from the original generations. Of course there have a been a few that have been absent, and honestly, there’s no way every single one of those people would have been around each other forever. Especially not as they began to have their own families, and would have moved on and not had the same amount of time or even been in the same places as everyone. And of course there are those that don’t have kids, such as one of my favorite couples of the series, Nash and Saint. As someone not married and with no kids, I know how quickly your friends who do get married and especially once they have kids, often move on and don’t keep you around as much as their friend group extends and changes to others with similar situations.

But that’s life. And this books is about where life goes after going to prison. For a crime that technically wasn’t one a lot of people would consider a crime or worth jail time for Zowen. The type of person Zowen was though, he couldn’t help the guilt that made him feel he deserved that punishment. His personal growth both from his time in prison to how things are after he gets out is shown perfectly in this story. Aston was a character that from her appearance in Ryier and Bowe’s story, I wasn’t sure how I would feel about her. Even if what she did moving on from Ry was the right thing and everyone knew it, that was a big part of that first story, and made me have some preconceived notions and feelings about her.

However her love for Zowen and how she was there for him was written in such a way that I soon had forgotten all of that and was rooting for the two of them. I don’t want to give away a little bit of the trope/twist of the story, you should read it to see where that goes, but I like it. And I like the parallel to one of their parents’ original stories. 

After the story the author did even mention something I’d kind of wondered, if there would ever be a story for Cassio and Royce, as I loved the two and the way they had their moment at the end. So I’m so glad she touched on that, knowing her readers like me would probably be hoping for that, after she had done a similar book with Orlando and Dominic, Rule’s twin brother’s ex and his new love interest. It’s easy to understand why she can’t go on with these right now. I just wish the world could fall in love with her original series so they would be clamoring for these as well. All I can hope now is that when the movie for Rule finally is out there that it will get those other people involved and invested in this world, as well as my hope they do a good job with one of my all time favorite books!

I didn’t know if I’d be able to fit this in, as it said it was a January release. But then I also saw that it came out last September? And another place it said not till April. But I picked it up to fit in and I am glad I did! It was good!

It hooked me from the start with the different classes of fae. Those with magic and those without. First of all Fallon’s curse is horrible. No one can touch her. And it’s not even just her skin, even if someone were to touch her hair it will cause her excruciating, debilitating pain. She was left as a baby in a basket with a note saying not to touch her, that she was cursed. And so at first no one would take her, until the man who became her father did. He soon learned the curse and not touching had to do with the pain it caused her, not that she hurt anyone else. But her life was hard because he soon realized he couldn’t touch her with bare skin. That means no hugging, nothing. The other kids at school didn’t believe it and would test it out, pulling her hair, touching her just to see what happened. So she had one friend really.

When her dad gets sick she decides to break into the Gilded City where the fae with magic live. She comes across a healer who comes back and heals her father. She also finds out he can touch her. But when she says that to him, he realizes who she is, and tells her to stay away. Turns out she comes from a dark fae family. One that had been completely sent away or was dead as far as everyone knew. They can’t kill her because the curse also says if anyone in the city kills her, then the heirs to the throne will die.

When they come to take her back to the city to put her in jail for her family’s sins, suddenly she finds powers she never knew she had as she fights to protect the few townspeople who are trying to protect her. So she is taken in to the city and charged with attending the school for all four years to learn to control her powers, in the hope that she will not turn dark like the rest of her family did. Her father is brought to live there with her and given a job. She is lucky enough that she met one girl the first night she snuck into the city named Eden that becomes a friend. And the healer who came to help her, Ariyon can’t seem to decide whether he likes her or hates her based on her family and how they affected his own family.

Other people on her side are the woman, Avis, whose apothecary shop she broke into the first night, as well as one of her instructors, who fought the queen to give her a chance at the school. She must live under her blood family’s name, even if she doesn’t want to claim the evil woman that was her mother. And soon there seems to be someone still there trying to cause issues and bring her mother back. Ariyon also has a brother named Ayden who becomes a friend, maybe boyfriend to Fallon. But to never be able to touch her, without bringing immediate pain comes between them in that aspect. And Fallon wants more, and Ariyon wants to be the one to give it to her. Even with knowing that his healing powers mean he will have a short life.

When things get really dangerous at the end, and Fallon has to choose to save him, things go wrong, and soon she must be the only one who can save him, even if she has no idea how she can do it.

I totally could see who might possibly be the one we should be keeping an eye on. There was even maybe a hint of a clue given right before the dance I think, that maybe solidified my inkling. Now, I just need the second book, and I think it is already available, since this one came out last year too? I don’t know, but I need to read more!

I adored the Carolina Comets series by Teagan Hunter and the Seattle Serpents are just as satisfying of reads so far! The story started off with the texts between the hockey players that had me cracking up as soon as I started reading. Of course this author has a whole series that is called the Texting series, so it is no wonder she can really make that such a fun part of the story. And then, our latest hunky hockey hero named Lucas Lawson rescues a puppy! Awwwwww!

He takes it to the closest vet clinic that is still open on Christmas Eve and it turns out that is where the sister of one of his teammate’s girlfriend works. Rory hates Lawson from the moment she met him. He has the total player vibe and reputation. But of course actually seeing him deal with the puppy and how he deals with that whole situation, she begins to see that maybe the side of him everyone else sees isn’t exactly the true Lucas Lawson.

Of course he’s not sure how he can actually take this puppy, with traveling for hockey, what will he do? He can only rely on the son of his neighber so often. So it happens that Rory gets roped in to helping out. The banter between the Rory and Lawson is fun. He calls her the dog’s mom, which she protests it isn’t true. But eventually, it seems she has to kind of agree the more time she spends with the dog.

Again spending time with the other hockey players and how their season is going, not to mention Rory being a workaholic just like her sister was in the first book, things finally start to hit a good note. And when Lawson realizes his feelings are more, and tells her, of course Rory reacts the way we’d expect. She’s not one for a serious relationship.

So that is basically the final drama in a way, a break up of sorts. However, the author makes it real. Makes how they figure things out not to be the overly dramatic craziness this so often leads to in other romances. And that is why I love this author. She writes stories that have so much I see as real in them, even as they create the fantasy romance we want to see. I can’t wait for the next story, I have an inkling of who it might be!

My only complaint is that I think Daisy was not the best name for the dog. I think they could have come up with someone more fun related to when or how she was found. But that’s my opinion, lol, and not really anything I should probably mention as a complaint.

I was excited to read this one, and then once I got into it, I was hooked! This book had so much to it! It had wonderful mythology/fantasy world building. Characters with a lot to them, both the good and some of the bad even. Although what we consider the bad in this book aren’t either of the main characters, even if others in the story may consider them monsters.

Pratyush, the Slayer, the only one left, was such an interesting character. His life may have seemed like he was a hero, but still he was under the King’s thumb, and often had to do things he might not have felt was necessary. Many of the monsters that could have just been avoided, and people who might not have died, but either they wouldn’t listen to him, or he had to for the King. It was easy to kind of fall in love with him a little in his interactions with Manisha when she was a priestess.

Manisha though was who I was rooting for. Seeing also what she had to go through to survive when her family and people were attacked and almost completely destroyed by the King’s army. The way her life at the holy temple wasn’t great. How there were mean girls there, and what happened when they took over thanks to the death of who had been in charge. Her life there made it hard for her to know who to trust once things changed and she was back in the world below the floating mountains. Made it harder for her to trust even when someone was actually offering help or friendship.

Of course there is also the whole theme of being violated. What happens to Manisha, what happens to the women she meets in the world below. And how even trying to help them causes her to doubt if things were her fault. What she could have differently to maybe prevent it from happening. The author does such a great job weaving into this fantastical story what it is like for real life girls or other victims in those situations. The doubts we feel. The way we are afraid to tell our story, because there are or could be those people who will basically feel as if it was our own fault it happened, that we did something wrong or deserved it because of the way we dressed or where we went. Once again there was line included that was one that has always resonated with me because of how it applies to my own situation. When Manisha says: “…took something from me that was not yours to take.” That feeling right there is one that sticks with me to this day, from the first time I read the basically same thing in the book After by Anna Todd.

And finally, the author’s note at the end. How she talks about her love of mythology being really ignited when she read Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, and how insane it is that she is now writing for his line of publishing with her own mythology. And I love bringing the story of Medusa to life in this retelling. How she is a villain, but think of how we overlook her past and what made her that way. The statue of Medusa holding the head of Perseus perfectly goes with this story, except we might not want our Perseus/Slayer dead this time.

I am also glad to see that we will hopefully be getting another story in this world, from one of Manisha’s sisters it seems!

This is an author that I love. She hasn’t had a book out in a while, so as soon as I heard about this one I was so excited! And once again she did not disappoint!

I was hooked from the first page. I felt the excitement at getting a new book by an author that I knew would make me feel all the feels. At first Reece doesn’t necessarily know that her father kidnapped her exactly. She thinks that he took her, but he has told her it is to keep her safe from the bad people and that her mom is dead. Which is easy for her to believe based on her last memory of her mother laying on their floor with one of her legs at a strange angle and not moving.

Of course as she’s gotten older she’s begun to wonder exactly what is true though. If every detail her father has given her is true or just to keep her quiet and following what he says. Even though they basically live in a very cheap run down motel at the moment, she is still basically what you’d consider homeless since they don’t really have the money to keep paying, and there is always the threat they may have to leave and go live in the van every time something spooks her father. They have to search through dumpsters for things to sell to get money as her dad currently has no job. She has to steal from the convenience store for her dad, and to get food she has learned tricks with vending machines. Her clothes are worn and taped together, and even when they find new shoes in the dumpsters in good condition her father makes her sell them, doesn’t let her have them to replace her own worn out shoes.

But then one of the newer residents at the hotel seems to recognize her, and suddenly she learns more about her past and her mother. Between those residents and the boy she meets and strikes up a friendship, as well as what looks like an undercover cop hanging around her school seemingly watching her, she gets online at a school library computer and starts researching both herself and her mother. Her father is doing things she doesn’t want to think about in order to help them keep their room, and he explodes at her more than he’s ever done when he finds her talking to the new boy, and she ends up locking herself in the bathroom that night. Her past and stealing tendencies just to get by lead to a mix up with her new friendship with Shawn and his family. It’s heartbreaking when it happens, even as understandable it was for her to do it.

In the end we do get a happy ending for Reece. The only thing that I wish for is more about how that goes, but otherwise I was blown away by the story, and can’t wait to add this one to my school library as soon as I can!

So, this is a book I’ve wanted to read for a while, and when I saw Anne over at Books of My Heart was doing a read along with the whole series, I decided this was the perfect time to jump in. I decided to do the audiobooks because that would be the easiest way to fit all of them in with the rest of my blogging and review books and TBR shelf challenges. Unfortunately the only way to get the audiobooks is from Audible. And I used my last credit to buy the first one before pausing my membership. I loved this first book so much though, that I was happy to go buy the second one from Audible, especially with it being on sale!

So one blurb about this book, not the one I chose above, but one says she is a teenager. I wonder if that was an early version of the book? Because she’s not a teenager. Pretty sure she’s 21? So that makes this a new adult or adult series in my opinion. I will also admit at the beginning I was a little confused about what was happening, but that was perfect because so was Angel! I was also a little unsure if I could like it as Angel with her drug use and such was just not normally a character I enjoy reading about. Yeah, I’m a squeaky clean nerd in that aspect.

As a fan of horror movies, zombie movies and tv shows sometimes, having a zombie that is not just a stumbling around or even racing around monster, still able to act like a human, was new for me. I do know there are shows out now where there are zombies that aren’t the mindless monsters like on The Walking Dead, but I haven’t watched those, so this was a fun and unique read for me. It was definitely interesting the way she kept the brains to feed herself. Mixed into smoothie like concoctions or with soup. Her one contact in the zombie world that had things together, well, I got frustrated when she didn’t call him earlier for help, although when she did call him, and what happened at that point, well that made the plot get rolling really quickly into a big moment! And of course the way he stored his brains, frozen meals? That was perfect as well!

While I had some guesses on who turned her, and I did end up being right, it was interesting how it all played out to find that out and what happened once it was kind of revealed. Especially once the idea of someone hunting zombies came up and how that related to this. There were lots of great characters in this book. Ones that I worried about causing problems, family members, ex-boyfriends and their friends, new friends, etc.

The ending was so good, we got a bit of romance working out, and Angel learning maybe she could move on from being a loser, if she stopped just accepting all the things being the way they were and started taking little bits of help as they were offered or available. With what happened at the big moment at the end as well, I can see a certain character possibly popping back up in a future story to cause mayhem.

Last but not least, I think the narrator was perfect! She totally sounded like what you might think someone from Louisiana would sound like, especially adding twang and inflection to make the character seem young and loser-like, but also someone you could root for and wanted to see make it!

I’ll probably start listening to book 2 as soon as I finish my current audiobook!

I was so excited to get this ARC in the mail as I usually only get e-galleys from this publisher. This was my first romance of 2024. It wasn’t a bad read overall. The characters were ones I liked, and the whole plot and small town setting was good as well. There was a lot that was great, realistic sometimes. But then a lot of it was also kind of cliche, kind of insta-love, and also there were a few characters that seemed to be thrown in just to maybe check off boxes for social expectations these days. For instance there was a they/them hairdresser that we met once or twice but only for very short times. There was a neighbor who was maybe on the spectrum with not liking to be touched and the way he dealt with situations. But also, almost seemed a bit like he was just added to check off a box, as the character being that way didn’t actually make any difference to the story itself.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about having those types of characters at all! It just seemed like they were added in to make sure the story had the diversity aspect to it. Other characters, such as the chef at the resort and his husband, fit into the story seamlessly and didn’t stick out to me like those other two did.

There was one bit where a character thought that he wouldn’t “not” fish just because there wasn’t a lot of time to spend on it. He’d go and do it when he had time just because he could. Made me think about how I never do my own writing anymore since I don’t have the perfect amount of time or environment to sit and write. When I used to use any spare time I had to write, even while working the cash register when I worked at the bookstore, in between customers when it would be slow at the store. I also liked that the main character kind of agrees with me about weighted blankets, and not caring for the feeling they made her feel smothered, like I think they do to me too.

So, this is a good read overall as I started off saying, but won’t be in my top reads of the year. Wasn’t a bad way to start off my new year of reading, although it was a little slower read for me.

I really liked the first book I read by this author, Monsters Born and Made, and so I was very excited to get an ARC of this one too. I had finished that one thinking that while it definitely had an ending, there was more to the story that needed to be told and hoping it would have a sequel. This book was not a sequel exactly, but still a part of the world, and an extension of the story. It also touched on the maristag race from the first book.

There were so many monsters in this story, in a way the title of the first one fit as well! I could see this being such a great movie or tv series, only if they spent the money to make all the monsters and special effects perfect though. Like the people who did the Game of Thrones series, or The Lord of the Rings movies. Characters that ended up on the expedition to the caves had me wondering and guessing which of them were actually who they said they were, and which were hiding a secret. One that stood out right away as a possibly undercover villain seemed to have redeemed themselves later on. But then, when they did turn out to be what I was thinking was possible, it was done perfectly.

Once again the ending wraps up for the most part, but knowing how it ties into the first book, and the way some people left things, I am definitely going to be on the lookout for at least one more book, as all of the different people come together, or meet in battles, to see how this land can actually continue to exist!

I loved this book! And it only cemented the fact that I NEED to watch some Bollywood movies! I loved all the characters, even if I got upset with Arya for her stubbornness, once again, she was a teenager, so it made sense for her to behave and feel the way she did.

Honestly this is so much more than just a romance, there are tests of friendship, family issues, societal/cultural issues, and just being a senior and figuring out where your life is going. All the different aspects of the story were very well fleshed out and fit like puzzle pieces to make a complete picture for the story.

While her family wasn’t perfect, a mother and father that for sure loved her, but had their own issues, and a sister that had left her and was back, but was she really back for good? Arya felt so much that things were on her to fix her family, since she was the one that had been left behind when her sister left. That was something she needed to learn wasn’t her responsibility.

Her frenemy/love interest was Dean, who had won her coveted Student Council president position. It was easy to see he was interested in her by how he acted. One thing I loved about him though, was once they started attempting to be friends or more, he was able to stop and call her on her behavior, even if it did make him angry. I thought that was very mature of him, and kind of real, definitely kept it from going into drama for drama’s sake like romances tend to do. I mean, Arya was creating enough drama on her own.

Then there was the break-up of her two best friends who had been dating. I was so mad at her friend Lisa for acting that way. I mean I get it, heartbreak is hard as a teenager, but for her to not even give Arya a chance to be her friend. That sucked. It added to the drama of the story for sure, and I’m glad she at least had Andy.

There were moments that reminded me of one of my favorite recent shows, Never Have I Ever, but it was still a story all on its own. And like I said at the beginning of my review, I really need to watch some Bollywood and I was given many many suggestions of things I need to try throughout the story. I highly recommend this one, and can’t wait to purchase it for my school library!