With a heavy heart I am giving Origin two stars. This series started off great, but with book 3 I started losing interest and with this being book 4, I really lost interest. I almost dnfed it so many times. It took me over a month to read it and finally finish it and as I was finishing it, it was a total struggle. I really wish I loved it. I felt like Katy was boring and I didn’t get why we had Daemon’s point of view. It didn’t really add much. There was not much resolution for the problems the characters were already facing, however there were even new big problems on top of the other big problems. This book was just very dull for me. Also, I guessed something with a character as well. I probably will finish the fifth and final novel in audiobook format.

What You Wish For follows a school librarian named Sam. Sam plans a 60th birthday party for her boss, the principal and owner of the school named Max. Max is well loved by everyone. However, once at the party, Max collapses and then starts coughing up blood. He ends up dying. Everyone in town and at school are heartbroken. A few weeks prior to the start of the school year, Duncan is hired as principal. Sam used to work with Duncan and he was very similar to Max with loving life and being so fun. Sam has high hopes for him and is scared her old crush for him will come back. Yet, when he comes to town and has their first staff meeting, he is more intense and strict. This puzzles Sam. She makes it her mission to help Duncan remember the old him while finding out his past. Will she be able to help him?
What You Wish For is such a good book. I love anything by Katherine Center. I was listening to this on audio and I could not stop listening. I had to devour it. It was cute and gripping. I highly recommend this book and any of her other books.

Sisters of Sword and Song follows two sisters-Halcyon and Evadne. Halcyon joined the military at a young age and is supposed to come back home. Instead of coming home, she sneaks into her childhood home to her shared bedroom with her sister the night prior to her return. She catches Evadne off guard and tells her that she cannot return home and to not give any information about her to her captain who will come the following day bearing the news of Halcyon and what she did. Halcyon takes off and is soon captured and taken to trial for killing a fellow soldier she was training with. She is given a heavy sentence. Evadne is at the trial and stands up and says she will take some of Halcyon’s sentence. Evadne is sentenced to do five years at the captain’s home. Once Evadne is at the captain’s house she soon becomes a scribe and is pulled into something much deeper than the sentence and what Halcyon was first fighting for. Will she and Halcyon be able to save their world?
Sisters of Sword and Song is just beautiful. It has a beautiful way of showing the sisters and their relationship. It has a beautiful world filled with magic. It has a beautiful slow burn romance. It is just beautiful. It has relationships, magic, and action all wrapped up in it. I did start out reading it physically, but the story is really slow and I didn’t have time to finish it as a library book, so I had to finish it as an audiobook. Highly recommend.

DNF at 51%.
The Winter Duke takes place in an icy world. Everything is basically made out of ice and it is cold. Ekata is fourth out of thirteen children. She is not from a normal family. All the family members are out to sabotage and murder one another. One day, Ekata wakes up to find out all of her family members have been cursed except her. Everyone is sleeping and there is no cure so far to the curse. So, Ekata has to become Duke.
The Winter Duke is accepting to the LGBTQ+ community where everyone is accepting of identity and sexuality in the book, which is great. Also, it is feminist. The title Duke never changes for whatever gender takes the title.
Now, the reason I dnfed The Winter Duke was because nothing literally happens. It’s basically a lot of thoughts and sitting around in council meetings and dinners. We know not that many things about Ekata and she is just plain boring. The writing and pacing is done well, but it comes off stiff and boring if that makes sense. I really wanted to enjoy this since I’ve been looking forward to reading it all year, but this isn’t for me.

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars
This is a sequel to These Witches Don’t Burn and is the last book in the series. This takes place not that long after These Witches Don’t Burn and the witches are once again being hunted by witch hunters that have a vendetta against them and want them to lose their powers. Hannah along with clan try to beat the witch hunters and stop them from their plan.
This book was good, but it focused a lot on Hannah and Morgan’s relationship and not on the action and stopping the witch hunters. There was a lot less action in this book compared to These Witches Don’t Burn. Also, the pacing felt rushed. I did enjoy Hannah and Morgan’s relationship and the friendship between Hannah and Gemma. Overall a good conclusion to the series.

The Bookish and the Beast takes place in a small town in North Carolina. Rosie works at Food Lion, but ends up quitting. On her way home she sees a dog and tries to take it back to its owners. She ends up going into the house and ends up in a library that has boxes of books and not just any books-Starfield books. She ends up meeting a guy in the house and ends up falling in the pool with the rare book. The guy she meets is Vance Reigns who plays Sond in the movies. He is a bad boy and has a lot of negative press on him. His mother and stepfather banished him to the small town in North Carolina until his eighteenth birthday. Due to Rosie ruining the rare book, she strikes up an agreement to organize and catalogue the books with Vance. Will she get to know the true Vance? Will there be sparks?
This has to be one of my favorite Once Upon a Con books. I literally wanted to clap at the end with how cute and good this book was. I loved Vance’s character development as he gets to know Rosie and give the town a chance. I loved Rosie’s enthusiasm about books. I highly recommend this book and this series.

Where Dreams Descend is a circus-esque book. Kallia feels like she lives inside a cage and craves to see the world more. She finds a flier for a competition for magicians in a place called Glorian. Kallia feels she must go and leave her cage behind. Kallia makes a distraction so she must leave her teacher Jack and her world behind. She goes to Glorian and enters the competition and is the only woman to enter. Women magicians tend to go missing. As the competition goes on, people start to disappear as well.
This book starts out so slow and I thought of dnfing it multiple times. It does pick up a little during the halfway mark, however I spent most of the book wanting to be just done with this book. I’ve enjoyed it a bit. Also, I found it a bit confusing at times-especially with the changing of point of views. I enjoyed Demarco and Kallia as characters. The ending with who the villain was not really explained. I really wish there were more things explained, but that could maybe be done in the sequel. I just found this okay. I may or may not read the sequel.

There is ancient evil that is to be released into the galaxy. The squad is back to try to save the day. This book is told in multiple point of views.
When I first started Aurora Burning, I kind of forgot what happened in Aurora Rising. All I really remember is Aurora oversleeping by 200 years and awaking. I did like the beginning with the refresher on who was who. There was a lot comedy in it. I listened to the audiobook and I can’t really tell you what the book was about. There was some betrayals and action mixed into it. Maybe I should have read this series as a physical book. Still was good from what I could gather.

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars
Siria is a sun child and is being hunted by the evil Queen named Isabelle. She must find her strength and the rebels to help her overthrow the darkness and Isabelle.
I loved listening to Ignite the Sun. It was very entertaining to listen to and made me always wanted more after listening to the sessions of reading. I loved the world and all the characters. The journey and adventure was well done. I didn’t like how Siria discovered how to use her powers super quickly without the help of others to train her. Also, the ending felt a bit rushed. Otherwise, I recommend this for a fast, fun read.

Unpopular opinion, but dnf.
Two women. Both want out of their lives. Both change plane tickets. One is presumed dead while the other takes the identity of the other.
The premise is really good, but I found myself very bored and not caring about the story.