Can I give this book more than five stars? Please?

I just powered through this in a matter of hours. I am so massively in love with this world and the characters. Even though I predicted a number of things, I still have no idea what’s going on in the best possible way. 

Penn Cole has somehow created this vast, intricate world full of secrets that we as the reader aren’t fully privy to. But it’s clear that this world is lush and intricate and so full of lore that all of the whispers we get about it just tantalize even further. I quickly fell in love with the characters, especially Diem, our FMC who is so shockingly badass I can barely stand it. She’s a healer, a big sister, a warrior, and otherwise  brilliant and snarky. When her mother disappears, her entire world stops—only for it to start again when she’s summoned to the Descendant palace to heal injured children. There were introduced to Luther Corbois, heir apparent and new fictional love of my life. I’ve already been prepared that this is the slowest of slow burns… but I don’t mind it. Their banter is incredible. He is protective and loving and everything. I love them both dearly. 

I’m too eager to get started on the second book now, but suffice it to say, I adored this book and (obviously) can’t wait to delve back into Cole’s world. I know there’s going to be so much more to explore and question and scream about. Spark of the Everflame is a storm of anticipation, the tension increasing constantly and just starting to tip into something devastating(ly incredible) right as the first book comes to a close. It was fabulous along the way to the climax, and I am beyond excited to see what happens next. 

Queen of Fate and Fury is exactly what it clams it will be: a retelling of the Grecian myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. But it is also so much more than that. It is a tale of how far Ariadne, Princess of Crete, will go for love. Not romantic love, but the love of her cold family, her only friend, and that of a brother nearly forgotten to a curse and to rumor. 

After nearly dying in an attempt to prove herself worthy of her parents’ love, Ariadne makes a deal with her mother: kill Theseus, and with his lifeblood and one of the Queen’s potions, bring back her long-lost brother who has been condemned to a long, agonizing death in the labyrinth beneath the city. The idea of being accepted and loved by her mother again is enough to get Ariadne to take this incredibly risk, and she launches into a dark, dangerous journey with the Athenian sacrifices her father demands. 

It is absolutely a diverting story and, I believe, a great take on the myth. Its focus on love doesn’t become quite clear until quite a way into the narrative, but that doesn’t detract from its impact. It does feel a bit PSA-y, but the message is still important: love is a choice, and it has to be two-sided and freely given. Anything claiming to be love beyond (or less than) that is not truly love. 

I was so proud for Ariadne coming to the realization that her love was worth more than the shallow vows of temporary ally, and that love itself was better than the withholding tease of her mother’s. That said, it’s hard to see how unnecessarily Ariadne is condemned. It is never explained why she is the “cursed princess”, because her affiliation with her brother Asterion would also afflict her sister, and yet it doesn’t. When she does realise that the love she deserves—true, mutual love—is not what she has received at home from anyone other than her brothers and sister or her one friend,  Ariadne frees herself. And it’s great to witness, and to watch her reject a possible marriage with someone she knows will never love her half as much as he loves himself. 

I’m all for her liberation from these ideas, and yet the ending still fell a bit flat. There are no winners in this story, which is perhaps the point. But it left me feeling a bit hollow, maybe because the hope found at the end is more abstract than concrete. 

I was still thoroughly entertained, even though many of the characters frustrated me. An HEA is never guaranteed in life, nor in the myths we immerse ourselves in, cultural or psychological. But I suppose in this day and age, I’d have liked to have my hope a tad more concrete. Probably more for myself than for the sake of what I read. 

Going into this novella, all I knew of it was that it would be a sapphic love story set in an Asian-inspired fantasy world. And I know now is that it is so much more than that.

Yeva learned at a young age that she had a special power. But said ability tore her away from her family and thrust into the mold of a nameless, faceless warrior heralded as the Emperor's greatest dragon-killer. One day she is summoned to the guildmaster's office and instructed to go as the lone emissary to a neighboring kingdom, thought to harbor dragons that once attacked the Empire. Yeva is to report back, with no clear end of the mission in sight. When she goes, she immediately recognizes that her present and past are colliding, despite her being in a completely unknown place. To do her duty, Yeva will have to adapt to her new surroundings... and discover herself in the process.

Neon Yang has created, with their gorgeous, flowing prose, a vivid fantasy landscape that reads like you're being immersed in an ancient legend. There is an epic mythology to it, despite the relative brevity of the text. I was instantly enchanted with the writing style. and the world-building was so well done that I felt as though I was watching a carefully crafted film. 

The only thing I take issue with is the fact that the story is so short. I could have happily lived within this world, with these characters, for far longer. I guess I'll have to settle for reading the rest of Yang's work. I'll excitedly snatch up any future books, regardless of length, that they release. 

Let me start with the good. 
There is some truly gorgeous prose here. I have never marked so many phrases I loved in an ebook before. Many descriptions, or even minor parts to larger sentences, are poetic and vivid. 
The main character is a badass. She knows how to defend herself both physically and verbally, takes no prisoners, is entirely herself, and also has the softness that comes with knowing healthy familial love. And she’s smart— she is quick to notice things, which is sadly not something I can say for all the supposedly strong heroines I’ve read in fantasy fiction. 
 
Now for the less good parts. 
While the descriptive phrases are often stunning, they’re also overused in a lot of places. Certain aesthetics are described in moments they don’t need to be, when they add nothing to the content of the story. Sure, it’s lovely to read some of it, but it interferes with the flow of the plot enough that it gets frustrating. 
The worldbuilding is told rather than shown, and inserted randomly at moments that don’t make sense. 
Mal and Ash’s relationship have no chemistry until they decided they like each other out of nowhere. This comes after a series of miscommunications (which are, blissfully, due to an actual reason:

Ash’s insecurity about his stammer

). But their care for each other feels completely unearned. 
 
The biggest issue I have, however, made me contemplate DNFing multiple times (before I finally did): the inconsistency of the writing. 
There are multiple POVs throughout the book, but they’re never introduced. At first, it seems as though Mal is the only one whose perspective we’ll get, and that’s fine. But then it jumps to her brother, and then later to side characters from other kingdoms, and none of it makes a whole lot of sense. There are essentially no transitions to explain the narrative shifts, and with it sometimes changing mid-scene, there are many parts of chapters that are difficult to read. 
Action scenes feel like afterthoughts, with very little explanation of what’s happening, and then it’s over.  There is a complete lack of tension in these moments, because there’s no build up nor any payoff. 
The resulting jerky nature of both the writing and the characterization of characters is, by far, the main reason for my rating being what it is (right now, I'd have it at 2 stars). 
 
I really wish the pacing had been better planned; the book drags in some places and then speeds through the action scenes so that it feels like nothing is happening overall. I’d have liked to have the characters be given more time to be introduced, so we could get to know them, rather than have side characters take over the majority of the narrative with very little reason as to why. It feels like they’re there simply to pad out the length of the book and make the world feel bigger, but it instead leaves everything feeling rather flat. The

witch maid

reveals herself almost immediately, eliminating the possibility for tension and the impact of a reveal. The spymaster, Wren, is supposed to be brilliant, but tells Mal everything she knows upon their first meeting. (And don’t get me started on Wren’s characterization—it’s one of my biggest issues with the book). 
 
The paragraphs in the electronic copy I read are also not indented, and at times not separated properly from thought to thought, making it even more difficult to read. I hope this is fixed for the published copy. 

I will try to come back to it at some point. I really want to know how it concludes, because the story is still interesting to me. But for now, I simply can't get through it. When I do finish it, however, I'll come back to update my review.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and JF Johns for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

While it feels bittersweet to end the trilogy, I have to say that this final book, Dark Harmony, fell short for me. I was still massively invested in what happened to the main characters, mostly because I needed to know how the villain was going to be taken down. But the main characters, Callie, started to lose her luster after book one. 

As much as I appreciate her journey and her acceptance of her power, which I find beautiful, Callie goes from acting like a strong young woman in the first book to something far less mature in the next two. Perhaps part of it is in the idiosyncrasies between earth and the Otherworld and the bizarre insertion of human vernacular when surrounded by a fantasy realm. But there’s also a part of it that makes me feel as though Callie has returned to an almost teenager-like phase now that she’s with her soulmate. It’s a strange line to toe, having her aware of all the trauma she has experienced and confronted, her desire to help those who have been taken advantage of, and her inability to draw appropriate conclusions from her situation. She’s supposed to be a PI, and yet she somehow has revelations in this book that I’d figured out in the previous installation. 

All in all, I still enjoyed reading this trilogy, especially book one. I’m sad that it was increasingly less well-edited as the series continued, and that the characterization of the main characters also deteriorated. But I still love the core of the main couple, and I’m happy I went on a journey with them. 

🌶️🌶️

Review didn’t save. I’ll come back to this later. 

Before I say anything else, I need to declare that I LOVE DESMOND. 

Now that’s out of the way…
Rhapsodic was recommended to me ages ago by a good friend of mine, and I’m so glad I finally read it. I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever read a romantasy book where the yearning felt so acute. The relationship between Callie and Des is the heart of everything; we get glimpses into Callie’s traumatic past, as that’s where they begin, slowly getting glimpses of how their relationship developed until the present day. Despite “cherub” being a rather ridiculous nickname (at least, not if your goal is to make the moon sexy), Des and Callie somehow both collide slowly and all at once, seven years apart. 

And then there’s the impossibly sexy truth or dare game. And my favorite little bit: the fact that Des is the King of Night and… Small Deaths. I see what you did there, Laura. My Shakespeare nerd brain is kicking and screaming with delight. 

Towards the end, it does start to feel a bit rushed. The villain isn’t given a huge introduction, so it does feel jarring. The villain is also intensely creepy. Not just that, but what is going on in the Fae realm is  absolutely harrowing. The cliffhanger isn’t horrible, but it is very much what nightmares are made of. 

That aside, I really want to dig into the world of the book more than we did. I have suspicions about Callie’s parents, and I need to know about both the Otherworld and Des’ past as much as I need to know how the human supernaturals will play into this. 

Off to go read the next book. You’d think I was repaying a debt, the pull this universe has on me…

Please forget my truly awful attempt at a joke. I’ll see myself out. 

🌶️🌶️🌶️

Unlike most books, I went into Hive almost blind. I'd read the short synopsis, seen that a lot of people had been reading it, and that was enough to intrigue me. I had no real idea of what I was getting into. Despite the fact that I'm now impatient for the next book (I've got a bit of a cliffhanger-hangover, which should be a thing if it isn't), I am so delighted to have read Hive.

The world is ending. The man who was humanity's last hope has just died, and the only two other humans living in the biosphere that shields them from a cruel, overheated world have very few options. Isabel is dying of cancer, and has a fleeting idea: perhaps she can send her partner Diego back in time... and save the world from the Doomsday in which they and their colleagues were key players.

DL Orton's writing is so fluid, and I found myself flying through the book. It was so easy to engage and accept the world as she wrote it because there is so much truth in it. While the book itself is dystopian, it's so close to our current world. The characters feel real, and at times, some of the villains feel so pointedly reminiscent of our current world climate, I found it a bit frightening. (Let's at least hope that our timeline can and will do better). It's got romance, familial love, adorable pets, and quirky colleagues sprinkled intertwined with the horrendously soulless billionaires and government. It helps lighten the load of the world's inevitable collapse, but will also keep you invested--and at times, devastated--right along with the characters. The ones we follow--Diego, Isabel, and "Madders"--are these intricate, flawed portraits demonstrating how, beyond everything else, love, curiosity and the belief that the world can be better will triumph over the darkness. You know, provided we don't reach Doomsday.

One thing I will say that did bug me a little-- what I assume to be AI usage to create the portraits of the characters before their respective chapters. It did help me visualize who was narrating the various chapters, but it threw me off a bit. 

Thank you so much to Rocky Mountain Press and Netgalley for the ARC!

I LOVE the world of The Ashen series, and returning to it early, albeit briefly, was such a gift.

Meant to be read in between books two and three, this novella covers the conspicuous absence of the Bloodaxe Crew from Kingdom of Claw through the lens of its new leader. Halved by the events of the first book, the Crew is still struggling to recover. Hekla still has a job to do, trying to figure out the mysteries surrounding the killing mist that threatens the town. But she’s not being listened to, what with the misogyny of the warriors she’s forced to deal with. Plus she has to contend with the identity of her one-night-stand complicating everything further, and… a magical squirrel? (His name is Kritka and I love him and I will accept no criticism of him). 

I cannot express just how much I adore Hekla. She is such a brilliant character, and has been through so much. Yet she is so much stronger for it. Watching her help another woman in a similar situation to that which she’d survived in the past gave me such a rush of pride for a fictional character. We certainly need all the feminist badasses we can get, fictional or otherwise. As she has previously, Demi Winters continues to weave her characters with incredible depth and nuance, each fighting their own battles and wrestling with past traumas and expectations when the true hope lies in the complete unknown of the future. And maybe, just maybe, Hekla can find the happiness she’s been without for so many years. 

I am so upset I can’t give this a higher rating than five stars. I am so excited to know what happens next in Hekla’s story, because it’s clearly going to be crucial to the next book, and because I need more of my new Book Husband Eyvind. I have just met him and I love him. 

Thank you so, SO much to Demi Winters for letting me be a part of #DemisCrew and be one of the first to read this incredible ARC! I can’t wait to own a physical copy of this when it releases :)
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I want to start by saying a huge thanks to Orbit Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

What do you do when your entire existence suddenly changes dramatically? For Davi, she's having a couple of existential crises: one, she's just been named the Dark Lord... and she has no idea what she's doing, really. And two, she's starting to recognize that she actually doesn't want to to reset the way she used to. In fact, she'd like to live a long time with her girlfriend, thank you very much.

This book picks up shortly after the previous one left off, with Davi and Tsav on a mission-- try, somehow, to keep the murderous horde away from the equally-murderous humans. And maybe achieve world peace in the process. There's naturally more court intrigue than the previous volume now that the human kingdom is involved, and we get to explore just how bad the humans Davi used to run with actually are. During this, we also see Davi actually progressing to a a more mature state of mind, as she actively contemplates who she was for the past thousand years, and why she should not and cannot continue on like that. Tsav is a big part of this revelation, but it's nice to have our MC gain more dimension along the way. While in the first book she was a bit too unrelatable, the sequel has her intelligently acknowledging that she actually likes how far she's come. She's still her irreverent, pop-culture-referencing self (odd enough for someone who claims to not remember much from Earth, but I digress). Davi just has discovered that treating everyone as valuable--except maybe the snake-wilders and certain power-hungry courtiers--is the only way that the world, and also she, can hope to find peace.

Everything remains silly and engaging, and while it's not quite the raucous journey of the first book, I actually enjoyed the action of this one more. The political intrigue (and commentary) is relevant to the times and helps flesh out the fantasy world even more. Plus, Johann and Matthias are amazing. My favorite bits absolutely have to do with their relationship and the funny things that seem to always happen with them. 

Despite the ending feel ever-so-slightly abrupt, the duology ends well. It certainly seems a natural conclusion, and I don't think there's much left unanswered. Except, what is going to happen to Odlen? We deserve more Odlen lore. I feel like she's important. Even if she's still just teething.