morganthebee's reviews
452 reviews

Hunt for Artemis is part of a series of stories about Greek myths, although it is a standalone, which was good for me because it’s my first foray into Arizona Tape. It’s a low-angst quick read, and the premise, especially with its modern setting, was interesting. I really enjoyed both Melany and Cressida’s characters, they had great chemistry, some fun banter, and complemented each other well. Being a shorter novel there wasn’t a lot of time devoted to the development of side characters and I found myself wanting more there, but the story still felt complete. I will say that despite it being classified as adult, the setting combined with very low spice and the writing style in general made Hunt for Artemis read a lot more like YA or NA to me.

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

I quite enjoyed The 7-10 Split, despite its mixed reviews. Ava and Grace are former childhood best friends and bowling rivals who had a falling out that led to them having no contact for about ten years. Grace has now returned to teach science at their former high school in small town Georgia, where Ava is an English teacher in the classroom across the hall. It’s partly enemies(ish)-to-lovers, partly second chance, and it was a fairly quick read that worked for me. 

The story sees the leading ladies reviving the school’s defunct bowling team with some miscommunication as things get started, but they work through it quickly and that’s when the story starts to get more interesting. The bowling is more a vehicle for the story than the story is about bowling itself. There’s a lot of time spent on interactions at practices and with the students on the team, but not a lot of detail about bowling or how the scoring and competitions work. 

I loved Ava and Grace, they were both women I’d be happy to know and spend time with in real life, and the chemistry between them is fabulous. I also really liked what we saw of Ava’s family, they were so caring and supportive, and it was obvious how tight knit they are. Their co-worker (and Ava’s best friend) Brad brought some levity to the story and I really enjoyed his character, and I wished he was actually in it a bit more. 

There are a couple of scenes with some spice, and although they’re not super long or detailed they are nice. I felt like the ending was a bit abrupt, although I do think that everything that was brought up throughout the book was resolved well. Overall I really enjoyed The 7-10 Split and I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

If I was rating on the story I’d give it a 3, on the spice it’s a 5, so I’m splitting the difference and Her Mortal Champion gets a 4 from me. The story is interesting, but it felt scattered and jumped from one thing to another well past the first half of the book. It does seem to level out later on, which was good, but I never really felt like we got satisfactory answers or explanations for some things. I did like the setting, and the spice was fire so chef’s kiss to that.

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

Heart of Ash is a modern day sapphic urban fantasy retelling of Hades and Persephone. I really enjoyed the writing style here, it’s modern but also has a classic feel to the rhythm of it. We have Indie (AKA Persephone) and Theo (AKA Hades). There are some recurring side characters in Indie’s friends Melinda and Olivia, Theo’s old friend Alan, and a few others. I would have liked to have seen a bit more fleshing out of Melinda and Olivia, but they did their job of helping develop the plot. Of all the characters we get the most insight into Indie. The first 11 chapters are all told from her perspective, which makes it a lot easier to connect with her. With chapter 12 we start to see Theo’s perspective as the story shifts to a dual POV, which I found really interesting, and I was wishing we had seen more of that earlier in the story.

There were some things that felt a little disjointed in the story. It has essentially two climaxes, one about halfway through and then a second near the end, and it feels like two separate stories with the characters and part of the storyline (the Persephone and Hades theme) spread across both parts. I found myself wanting a bit more tying the two parts together. Maybe that disjointed feeling was the point, given that it is based on the story of a woman forced to spend half her time in hell and half her time in the real world, but if it was I don’t think it was clear enough in the writing. Even so, it was a really enjoyable overall.

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

Pick Your Potion is a collection of primarily speculative fiction short stories that vary in length from as short as one page to as long as twenty-six. The tone also varies, with some quite humorous while others are twisted and dark and a bit unsettling.  While a number of them were well-rounded, others felt incomplete, more like they should have been the start of something bigger rather than the short stories they were.

It can be difficult to rate or review something that’s so varied, and it’s hard to rate individual stories without giving away too much when they’re so short. There were some stories that I really loved, some that I found interesting and enjoyed even if I didn’t love them, and some that just didn’t work for me or maybe I just didn’t get. I’ve been debating a lot about my rating for this anthology and I think overall it’s a 3.5 for me.

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