What do I say about this book other than: it completely changed me. It's changed my perspective concerning my high expectations for romance books, especially queer romance books. A bi demisexual female main character? A bookstore meet-cute? (Especially one I've been in before: Powell's!!) Graduated from OSU and formerly from Ohio? SAY LESS. This is absolutely everything I could want in a queer romance.  
 
The story fleshes itself out between present-day (Christmas 2022) and flashbacks to Christmas a year ago (2021) where our two MCs spend a magical day together walking around Portland, getting to know each other, and falling in love. Naturally, the magic has to come to an abrupt end early the next morning, and our MCs don't see each other again for almost an entire year. The problem? It's because Ellie agreed to marry Andrew so he could access his inheritance. After an agreement is struck, they escape to his family's cabin in the mountains for Christmas, and Ellie learns that his sister, Jack (Jacqueline), is the woman she fell in love with a year ago over the course of one day.

What feels illogical to Ellie, as a demisexual who only experiences sexual attraction to people after she knows and trusts them well, must be accepted as fact. Andrew and Ellie try to keep their false marriage a secret from the entire family, Jack included. Of course things quickly go off the rails, as they often do, and both women can't help but admit they still have feelings for each other.

Even though I knew how the story would end for both Ellie and Andrew's love interests, its progression felt realistic (as realistic as the fake dating trope can, anyway). I appreciate that we do not actually witness a sex scene between any characters until over halfway through the book - it satisfied the sapphic yearning I crave in books (and life, let's be real), and was a really nice affirmation of my own personal identity as a bi and demisexual person. It was hard not to see aspects of myself in Ellie, so this love story was a balm to my heart.

And now, I present my absolute favorite quotes in chronological order (because they just deserve to be shared):

“‘Well, I mean, isn’t forever the goal of marriage?’
Jack’s haw tightens for a minute, and I study her profile as she turns to look out at the snow. It’s obvious I’ve said something wrong, but I’m not sure what it is. ‘I think marriage is just promising to move someone as long as you can for as best you can. I think relationships can be exactly what they’re supposed to be,’ she says, eyes still on the snow, ‘even if they only last for one year, or five years, or even just for one day. The good parts of the time you spent with a person don’t go away simply because the relationship ends.’” (p. 105)
......
“My free hand clutches at my throat. The whole lumbersexual thing suddenly makes perfect sense because good lord. Watching Jack chop that piece of wood in half is the single most arousing thing my demisexual brain has ever witnessed. Even though her muscles aren’t visible through her flannel, I can somehow sense the way they ripple, the tendons in her neck straining, her hands flexing against the handle of the axe. Some primal instinct in me says, This one could build you shelter." (p. 250)
......
"The thing is, I used to dream about someone who would always choose me above everything else. There was romance in that dream, sure. I wanted someone who would see all my flaws and still lean in and tell me I'm beautiful. I wanted someone who would hold my hand in public and hold the rest of me in private, a warm body in my bed, a constant presence in my life.

I wanted someone who would see the whole mess of me - all the feelings and the perfectionism and the desire for control and the shape of my heart and the ache of my dreams, the wild, imperfect hunger of me, and the fear that keeps me from ever feeling full - and wouldn't get freaked out or turned off. Someone who would kiss me anyway." (p. 304)
......
"So yes. It was a romantic delusion. But beneath the desire to be cherished was the ever-present thrum of my desire to be chosen. I wanted someone who would pick me to be their family. I believe that somewhere out there was the person who would want to spend every holiday with me. The person who would pick me as their partner for every duet, the person who would always care about what I had to say, who would get me off the couch and into the world. The person patient enough to build trust and connection with me first; the person who would notice when I'm hurting and still never calculate the cost of loving me. Despite all my cynicism, I had to believe that person existed.

And last Christmas I thought snow magic had delivered her to me. And when I saw Claire standing there in front of the Airstream, I took it as proof that my belief was childish and naïve. My own parents hadn't loved me enough to stick around. Why did I think someone else would?" (pp. 304-305)
......
"But I didn't need an explanation. Claire confirmed what I'd already expected: that Jack and I were never meant to last. I convinced myself we could never have anything more than one perfect day together because I was terrified of what might happen between us when things stopped being perfect. I couldn't imagine a world where Jack might choose me after the snow melted." (306)
......
"I used to think letting more people in would mean having more people who could ultimately disappoint me. Hurt me. Walk out of my life. But having more people means there are more arms at the ready to catch me when I fall. And I fall a lot. 

And it feels good to be the arms for someone else, too. It feels good to both need and be needed - to have seasons of needing and seasons of giving." (p. 330)
......
"So I'm going to go ahead and embarrass myself in a room filled with fifty strangers. 'I fell in love with you after spending one day with you, which is a lot, I know. Definitely not something you're supposed to admit, because it's love-bomby and Romeo-ish, but it's true. I fell in love with you that day, and I was so scared of getting rejected, that I convinced myself it didn't mean anything. But it did. It meant so much to me.'

Jack bites down on the edge of her smile, and she's about to reject me. The trio is playing the chorus of 'Call Me Maybe,' and Jack is about to tell me it doesn't mean anything to her anymore. I'm scared, but I'm trying so hard to be honest. So I tell her: 'I am feeling very emotionally vulnerable right now, and I'm afraid of taking this risk with you, Jack. But I also know that you're a risk worth taking, and if there is any part of you that thinks you might be able to forgive me-'" (335)
......
"I wrap my arms around her. I know there's no guarantee this will last. We could fall apart in a year or five years. We could fall apart tomorrow. I could give Jack everything and lose her again anyway. I take Jack's face in my hands and kiss her one more time, on the little white scare across her upper lip.

If it's twelve hours, or twelve years, or the rest of our beautiful lives, I'm going to savor every damn second of it. Starting with this second outside in the snow, in the glow of Gillian's headlights." (345)

This book lived up to the hype! The world-building, the political intrigue, the sapphic longing, the DRAGONS - it truly had everything I look for in a high fantasy. AND it's a complete, standalone book. I know this is a series, but I love that Shannon has created this series to ensure that each book can be read on its own, in any order, so that every reader will have a fully complete story in their hands every time. This did not disappoint.

I'm not sure how else to go in-depth about this book because it was just so well-done. It took me about 40% of the book to get into the rhythm and feel like I could fully keep track of the characters and politics of the world, but once I had it down, I was completely hooked. I couldn't think about another book or another story because I'd been so fully engrossed.

The last 20% of the book I spent wondering how Shannon could possibly manage to work up to a huge climax and squeeze in a satisfying resolution that didn't feel rushed, but MAN SHE DID IT.

I don't even have a favorite character because they're all so perfectly human and damaged in their own ways. Ead and Sabran, my babies. Tané and her dragon, absolutely phenomenal. Even Margret and Loth, iconic sibling duo. Everyone who survived had realistic endings, and you're left with just enough room to imagine how they went on to live the rest of their lives.

I can't recommend this book enough to lovers of high fantasy with strong, badass women protagonists, and I absolutely cannot wait for the next installment: A Day of Fallen Night.

I read this book for my January in-person book club pick and was surprised how much I enjoyed it. The book has been sitting on my unread shelf for at least 3 years, but I haven't been in the mood to read mystery/suspense lately, so I suggested it to my small group of readers.

This is a dark book. Starts off with a bang when we find our main character, Lydia, finds a patron of the book store where she's employed (Bright Ideas) has

committed suicide.

From here, the story begins its quick unraveling. Details about Lydia's mysterious past are revealed through flashbacks

(she was the lone survivor of the Hammerman's killings in Colorado as a child, her father found her hiding under the kitchen sink at her friend's house and after the police investigation failed to find the killer, they left town without telling anyone)

while we also work to solve the mystery of Joey's death (the  bookstore patron). 

Though she no longer speaks to her father or friends from her childhood (thanks to ~trauma~), people begin to come out of the woodwork. The end of the book provides satisfying resolutions to both mysteries that the book works through simultaneously.

I enjoyed the pace of the book, the unraveling of the mysteries, and that even though there's more challenges to work through at the end for all the characters involved, there is hope on the horizon. The only reason it wasn't a 5-star read for me is because I predicted some of the mysteries a bit before they were revealed, and I think there are smarter people out there who could've figured it all out sooner.

This was a dark, imaginative, powerful book. A modern retelling and reimagining of Baba Yaga, and how the insidious nature of cultural/generational trauma are passed down throughout history and shape the stories we hold onto and continue to pass down.

I wish I would've taken the time to read the physical copy of this book, as I think I would've pinpointed a lot more quotes and taken more away from the story as a whole, but this was one that gripped me and held me in its clutches from the first page. If you're looking for modern Jewish representation that deals with challenging topics like eugenics, antisemitism, ethnic cleansing, and generational trauma with a taste of magical realism and a fairytale retelling (Baba Yaga telling her story throughout some chapters and Thistlefoot!) - this book is a good choice for you.

I'll simply share a couple of approximate quotes that I remembered to tag in my audiobook copy. They may not appear below the same way they appear in the written text, but the word-for-word recitation should be precise enough.

"'There was a lot of talk about the proper way to behave in the cemetery. Don't step on the grave, don't talk too loud, don't eat or drink or climb on the stones. But you know what, Belle? All those people making all those rules, they got it wrong. That's not respect. You know the only real way to respect people whose lives are over? Or those like me, whose lives never even began?'
'How?' Bellatine breathed. She wanted to know. She wanted to learn everything. Somehow she'd dismissed Winnifred as ditzy, frivolous, airy, but she was wrong. This was an ancient being. She was a part of the planet itself. Winnifred's eyes lit up.
'You prove to them that you aren't wasting yours.'"
.........
"'It's the story,' Isaac realized. 'He's trying to stop the story.'
How do you ruin a people? Is it with fire? Is it with bullets? You can drag a man through the street tied to the back of a horse. You can incinerate a village. Can line families up in rows against a brick wall and fell them one by one like a forest. But all it takes is one survivor, and the story lives on. One survivor to carry the poems and the songs, the prayers, the sorrows. It isn't just taking a life that destroys a people - it's taking their history. That was why the Longshadow Man needed to burn Thistlefoot - because the house remembered. Kill the story, and you kill the culture. You can't destroy an act of destruction. But if the story lives on, the whole story - not only the death of the place, but the life - then, the slaughterer has lost."

This book cracked me in two. Two unlikeable characters meet by happenstance in an art museum, going about their daily lives. A thief and a mathematician who thinks the key to time travel is bees. How much more enticing of a premise is that?
Regan makes rash decisions and lives life by the seat of her pants. She doesn't particularly like her boyfriend, Marc (and neither do her parents), but she keeps him around as long as he's interesting. She uses sex to cope with her inability to be genuine and connect with others.
Aldo is different. Introvert, theoretical mathematician by pure coincidence (it was the one subject that continued to hold his interest over the years), doesn't connect well with others because he doesn't care to. He's kind, but to the point in every interaction, so he's disliked by many people (especially his students). And he's trying to solve the problem that is time travel by studying bees and their hexagonal patterns.
They meet and agree to six conversations. Unsurprisingly, they're life-altering.

They open up to each other over the course of these conversations and they both get closer to understanding what makes the other person tick. In short, they fall in love. Like the death of star, the relationship burns quickly until a fateful evening when it explodes. They can't help but gravitate back to each other, though. It ends on a rather satisfying note: they're both average humans to people, but are everything to each other.
They seem to feed into each other's obsessive qualities and it doesn't feel healthy at any point. But god, it's enticing. It's easy to see from both of their perspectives and put yourself in their positions - really understand what they see in each other, even as ruined, tragic people. Several times it made me fantasize about being in a similar situation. Definitely had to check myself emotionally throughout the book.

This book made me tear up, struggle and spiral out a bit, so here are some of my favorite quotes and passages that fucked with me (not always in the best way).

"When you learn a new word, you suddenly see it everywhere. The mind comforts itself by believing this to be coincidence but it isn't - it's ignorance falling away. Your future self will always see what your present self is blind to. This is the problem with mortality, which is in fact a problem of time." (p. 31)

"In her experience, curiosity about a person was never a good sign. Curiosity was unspeakably worse and far more addicting than sexual attraction. Curiosity usually meant a kindling of something highly flammable, which wasn't at all what Regan wanted from this." (p. 43)

“Fascinating, really, to see what she saw. Bewildering that she could turn something in her mind into something real. Practical magic.
He wandered to the hall closet, noting the places she’d been.
Here. Here. There.
His mind retraced the shape of her touch, replicating its patterns and shapes; linking observations together. The speed of her hesitation. The force of her breath. He turned her over in his head, facts and details and observations, wrapping his mind around her the way his fingers had done.” (p. 97)

“That its reflex never died; the little song of Don’t go, just stay. Settle over me like the tide, cover me like a blanket, wrap around me like the sun.
Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go.” (p. 105)

"I want you to say everything, anything. I want to have your thoughts, I want to bottle them, I want to put them in my drawer for safekeeping." (p. 176)

"Yes it does, he doesn't want to be the person she hides from, he wants to be the person she hides with." (p. 177)

"'Sometimes I feel like I"m just waiting for something that will never happen,' he said. 'Like I'm just existing from day to day but will never really matter. I get up in the morning because I have to, because I have to do something or i'm just wasting space, or because if I don't answer the phone my dad will be alone. But it's an effort, it takes work. I have to tell myself, every day, get up. Get up, do this, move like this, talk to people, be normal, try to be social, be nice, be patient. On the inside I just feel like, I don't know, nothing. Like I'm just an algorithm that someone put in place.'" (p. 193)

"When Aldo spoke of Regan his voice had a tendency to change, illumination rising near his cheeks. 'You should see her work,' he would say the same way someone else might have said: Come outside, come look at the stars." (p. 200) I mean really, who doesn't want to be thought of this way by someone they love?

"He would come to share her joys until he could no longer separate them from his own, and then one day, maybe turning to her at a party or rushing to ask in a text message, he would say: What's that thing I like? And she would know the answer. She would know everything. Eventually, all the answers to all that he was would be cradled in the palms of her hands." (p. 222)

"People thought addiction was a craving, but the difference was this: Cravings were wishes that could be satisfied, but compulsions were needs that must be met." (p. 237)

A small look at the relationship between Lyra and her daemon, trying to still build up trust between each other after their separation in book 3. 

Loved getting a glimpse into an origin story (of sorts) for Mrs. Coulter (and her daemon).