morganthebee's reviews
452 reviews

A Breathless Place left me breathless. I’d been meaning to read, or in this case listen to it for a while, but knowing that it centers around a character who is planning to end her own life I just hadn’t been in the right headspace until now. The story is so raw and complex, and it’s a heavy topic to be sure, but Harper Bliss is a phenomenal author who handles it with such care. She slowly breathes love and hope into it, leaving us with a beautiful and ultimately uplifting story, and Abby Craden’s narration of the audiobook is flawless.

Of Hoarfrost and Blood is an epic fantasy with magical Fae, sorcerers, and dragons. It also has a bit of mild romance thrown in, although that’s not the main focus of the book and honestly was my least favorite part of the story, to the point where I could have done without it completely.

The story is a first person account from the perspective of Ananya, later knows as Demerise, a Fae teenager betrayed and left reeling. She’s 15 for most of the book, turning 16 later in the story and then 26 after a 10-year time skip near the end. Because of her age the story sometimes reads as YA, but I don’t think it’s intended to be and there are a lot of very adult topics touched on. It’s well written, but some parts are tough and uncomfortable, so definitely check your triggers before reading this one if you’ve got them.

We move through different places and people, with the book divided into six parts, each relating to Demerise’s relationships and interactions with different characters, which was an interesting way to break up the story. I enjoyed most of the side characters and found them all interesting, even those without their own dedicated section, although it felt like some were there more for lip service and then thrown away. The book ends on a cliffhanger and I’ll definitely read the follow up to see where it goes from here, especially since it’s pretty clear that we’ll be getting the adult Demerise.

 

I received a free ARC from the author, but my review is unbiased and left voluntarily.

The Road Trip Agreement by Tiana Warner is a slow burning, meandering adventure up and down (or down and up, I suppose) the Pacific Coast. Coral, a van life vlogger from Canada with a small but growing following, is in trouble: she’s got a deal with her parents and if she doesn’t meet the terms, she’ll lose the lifestyle she loves. She’s full of adventure, and her vlog shows it. American vlogger Ruby, on the other hand, is a bit of a perfectionist, whose videos are slow and laid back, and focus on her vegan cooking and her rescue dog, Calvin. She’s got her own problems, though, and this leads her to agree to Coral’s proposal despite already having over a million followers already: go on a joint road trip together to bring in new subscribers, and by extension income, to each other. 

 

The trip brings out different sides of each of them, with Ruby tempering Coral and Coral bringing out Ruby’s more adventurous side. There are quite a few tropes happening here, with fake dating, opposites attracting, and secrets being kept all while they’re stuck together in a van with only one bed, but it works. There really aren’t a lot of side characters with much face time, but we do get Calvin the dog, who has a big personality and helps bring the women even closer. Ruby’s mom and Coral’s sister are the two other characters we get to know the best, and they’re both supportive but a wee bit one-dimensional—mostly because we just don’t get to know them very well as the majority of the story takes place on the road. 

 

Warner brings us some lovely imagery, with descriptive writing and a nice ebb and flow between calm, restful moments and adventurous escapades. There are some hilarious mishaps, but also some more serious moments throughout the book, but it feels really balanced and nothing is too overwhelming. Despite being a super slow burn we do get there, and it culminates in a lovely spicy scene. Overall I really enjoyed The Road Trip Agreement, and I’ll definitely be checking out more of Tiana Warner’s books. 

Lee Winter is an expert when it comes to ice queens, but in Vengeance Planning for Amateurs she shows she can also step out of her usual weighty tales and right into romantic comedy with the best of them. The story pairs Olivia Roberts, a sweet pushover of a woman who runs her own muffin baking company, with Margaret Blackwood, an isolated ice queen and former academic who owns the bookstore where Olivia runs a weekly book club. 

 

Olivia is smart but naive, and her exes have taken advantage of her kindness. When an incident happens and her latest ex steals the taxidermied penguin that belonged to her nana, she decides she’s had enough and posts a notice for a henchperson to assist her in exacting revenge on said exes. She gets a few applicants, including Margaret, the bookstore’s owner. They embark on a series of hilarious hijinks along with some quirky side folks, with a lot of character development for the two leading ladies along the way as Olivia learns to stand up for herself and Margaret begins to open up. It’s a really funny story but there are some serious elements here, and it’s all handled beautifully with Winter’s deft hand. I listened to the Audiobook and highly recommend it, Cat Gould was an excellent narrator.

There’s a lot happening in Stars and Soil. It’s got political intrigue, competing religious sects, forbidden magic, and deals heavily with grief. It’s all told from the POV of Caitlyn, the successful daughter of two merchants who works for the family business, although more out of a sense of familial obligation to her fathers than a true desire to do the work. The story is mostly told in the present, but there are some chapters that are memories of past events.

I liked Caitlyn as a character and empathized with her, but found myself struggling to believe the depth of some of her relationships, as there’s a lot of time spent on worldbuilding and politicking and not as much spent on developing those connections. I think it’s interesting that the world itself is very diverse, with plenty of LGBTQ couples, non-binary characters, and even a couple of non-human races, but it’s still rather misogynistic and patriarchal.

My copy was an ARC, but this is an edited republishing of an existing novel, and the eBook contained numerous grammatical errors throughout. Not enough to make me DNF or not recommend the book, but enough that I’m going with a 3.5 star rating.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley, but my review is unbiased and left voluntarily.