the_cover_contessa's Reviews (1.75k)

Thank you to Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers for sending me a copy of this book to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

I've not read any books by this author previously but when I was sent the blurb to see if it was something I'd be interested in, I was sucked right in. The fantasy aspect with it's lore and promise of ghosts was really interesting to me.

The cover of the book is gorgeous. And yes, I will judge a book by it's cover. Whoever did the art really captured the essence of the story that unfolds in the pages of the book.

This book is 100% YA and reads as such. Usually I don't mind YA, but the characters in this book seemed particularly immature. I have a 17 year old child and that child is not as naive as these kids were. That being said, when you grow up on a secluded island being schooled in a one room school house, I suppose you may not be as mature as one might expect you to be. I had a hard time connecting or having empathy for any of the characters. And the romance was more of an insta-love, there was no build up or real chemistry between Mabel the FMC and Miles the MMC.

If you've ever seen M. Night Shyamalan's The Village, then you get the vibe this book gives off. The people of Weymouth island definitely separate themselves from the rest of society and live by their own rules. And people just don't try and leave the island to pursue other lives.

All this being said, I just did not find the book flowed all that well. It was extremely slow with not much happening at all until the last few chapters, where all the action took place. I did enjoy the lore, but I felt it wasn't explored enough. The reader is told the lore rather than it being shown. I had a hard time picturing things or understanding just what the people of this island were truly trying to do for the world at large. I needed more world building to understand the magic and be able to have a suspension of belief that only 11 families would guard the world from a potential invasion of the dead. And I needed the author to drop hints as to what was really happening rather than have it all come to a head at the end.

One of my biggest complaints for this book would be the amount of characters that are introduced. I started writing down all the names and where they fit in and it was so many. Some that made just a periphery appearance and never again returned, leaving me trying to understand what their purpose was in the first place.

The writing could have used some tightening for me. I felt like the author never really tried to show what was happening as much as she just told the reader what was happening. It took me out of the story. I wanted to really understand what these storms were bringing to the world. Why did they start? How did the original families know they were the last line of defense for the beings that were trying to break through? It was just not executed well enough for me to understand the world.

I've read a lot of YA and enjoyed it despite being older. I can definitely see how this book might appeal to young readers as its target audience who are wanting to delve into fantasy. It's very young YA and would be easy for a younger age group to understand.
I would not compare this book to Twilight at all, as is listed in the blurb. But it is dark and mysterious and has some good bones as a story.

This is my first title by Alexis Daria and I was excited to jump in and see how her writing was. I was not disappointed.
I enjoyed her pacing and her plot. Her writing was good and the story line flowed easily.
She easily developed her characters. I really liked Evie. She was fun and I liked how creative she was.  Theo seemed nice but I didn't get too much of him since this was from Evie's point of view and very short. Harder to develop characters in such a short amount of time with only one POV.
The chemistry between the two characters was just ok for me. I didn't really feel it as much as I would have liked. 
The side characters were nice, though we didn't get much about them other than them living in the building. I did like the relationship Daria portrayed between Evie and her sister April.
I can definitely see myself picking up more titles from this author in the future!

I have not read anything by this author before. I have to say, I really enjoyed this short story. I'm always looking for new romance authors who give great stories that flow well on the page.
Bellefleur easily established the chemistry between Griffin and Evereigh despite the short time in order to do it. I loved their meet cutes and how you could feel the pull between these two characters. They were sexy and flirty together.
I liked that Bellefleur incorporated other characters into the story who were actually developed enough to see their personalities. That is not an easy feat with such a short time frame to work with.
I will say they did fall into bed rather quickly. I do wish there was more between then prior to it happening. And I just don't believe that two people who barely know each other would not use protection and just trust one another, but maybe that's me.
Overall I enjoyed this short with it's fireman theme and all the saving that happened to create a relationship between the characters. I could definitely see this one as a longer story. I'm excited to have found a new romance author to look into!

I've been hearing about Olivia Dade for a while. I even own one of her books (though it's second in the series so I won't read it until I read the first one). What I've heard mostly is she writes realistic female characters, which I'm always wanting to see.
The FMC in this novella, Nina, definitely fits the realistic and relatable bill. I love that she's older. And I love that she's curvy! Realistically, I do wish she was more forthcoming with her best friend, who doesn't play much more than a background character in the story. But perceptions are what they are. The MMC, William, is hard to pin down. Honestly, I didn't really see much development for him and really wanted more. While I understand this may be harder in a short story, I just didn't get any kind of vibe from him. And his side of the story was more told than shown. I think this would have worked better in dual POV.
I love the snowed in trope, though it seemed a bit unrealistic to me to be stuck on the highway and not moving for so many hours without knowing why. I don't live in an area that gets snow storms where people get abandoned so perhaps it happens? But the way the story was told didn't make me feel it was real. The author also wove in the close proximity trope, which I always love.
Overall this one was fun but not spectacular. I would definitely give other books by this author a try in the future.

I'm a big Tessa Bailey fan. I love her characters and their relationships and ups and down.
This novella was sweet but I felt like it went zero to sixty in 1.2 seconds without much build up. 
While I enjoyed the back and forth between Evie and Luke, I kind of needed more. I'm not saying I don't believe in love or lust at first sight, but I also believe there needs to be a bit of a build up.
Tessa introduces us to Evie who is trying to put her and her son's lives back together with a clean move to a new town. And she is very adamant about not wanting to get tangled up with someone because she needs to keep her life simple. Yet she falls hard quickly for Luke, without even really truly knowing him. There's not real background. Same goes for Luke. He's attracted to Evie, I get that, but within two days he wants her to be his wife and I just didn't get the chemistry between them that made that actually happen.
Given this is a short story, I do get there is limited time to get the characters together and get to their happily ever after, but it just felt super rushed in this story and did not feel like typical Bailey for me.
I did appreciate Bailey making Evie a strong independent woman who wanted to make her own decisions. I definitely felt that from her. Luke, on the other hand, is just this big burly man who has siblings and loves his farm but that's about all we know about him. I feel like in such a small town, perhaps introducing some other characters to the story so we could learn about Luke through them would have been helpful.
I feel like this story would have been better as a full novel but overall it was fun, and had nice spice.