Welcome to Bishop, which is a super eerie town where you will find the sunflowers whispering secrets and the land having a hunger for blood. However, it is known too for the constant windstorms and the sunflower fields stretch so far that you cannot see the begin to end. But, the biggest thing that occurs in Bishop is the women who end up going missing and it never surprises the towns community when they find out more women go missing. In this story, there are three women who go missing on a stormy night and Where Darkness Blooms follow their daughters. Meet Delilah (she wants to move on with her boyfriend, but she cannot stand his touch) , Whitney (she has lost her mother, but has also lost her girlfriend), Eleanor (she only finds peace with the whispers of the old weathervane). and Jude (she is the twin of Whitney and prefers to ignore everything that goes on, but that does not mean she has no secrets-she just may have had a summer affair with Delilah's boyfriend). Secrets will spill as the girls find that Bishop was founded on blood.

This was one of the 2023 releases I was looking forward to since I do somewhat enjoy supernatural thrillers. Plus, the covers with girls with flowers on it is very captivating and eye catching.

I will admit I struggled on and off with this book since it felt like there was a lot of things going on and I kept forgetting who was who. To me, it felt like it was trying to echo other books with similar themes, but did follow its potential all the way and skimmed the surface with the issues it was trying to convey. 

The things that Where Darkness Blooms does well are: found family and the empowering and strength of women.

It ended up feeling like an okay read to where I definitely did not dislike it, but I did like it and would recommend it to others. This was close to a 4 star read though, but where I struggled with remembering who was who and finding a few of the characters to be a little annoying is the reasons on the why I settled on a 3.5 star rating.

Where Darkness Blooms shows a ton of potential and I believe Andrea Hannah as an author too has much potential, so I look forward to reading more of Andrea's books to see how she grows with her storytelling and writing.

The Salt Grows Heavy is a dark and twisted retelling of a fairytale we all know: The Little Mermaid.

That is enough said on really what this is about, but I want to further this a bit more-I want you to think less of The Little Mermaid we know and love by Disney, but to really think of the Brother's Grimm when it comes to the fairytale.

The Salt Grows Heavy is really dark and reimagines this fairytale of the mermaid as a fantasy and horror tale. There are cannibal mermaids and we see our main character travel with a plague doctor. It's definitely an interesting concept and image.

For those who do not know, this is a novella and is obviously a fast read. The story was well done and I think because I read this on audiobook, I did not get to encompass the atmosphere of the story well and it could have been the narrator pulling me out of the story since I found myself engaged and not engaged as I was listening to this book.

This novella is really gory so discretion beware and I did find this novella to be fascinating at times. I think for me this was an okay read, but like I said it could have been a different experience if I physically read this book.

In Wings Once Cursed & Bound, we meet Bennet Andrews who just happens to represent a secret organization of supernatural beings and this organization dedicates itself to finding and acquiring mythical objects to protect these objects from the humans. Bennet ends up meeting Peeraphan Rahttana, she just happened to step into a pair of Red Shoes, which ultimately traps her in the shoes curse-she will have to dance herself to death. He thinks he is too late when it comes to The Red Shoes and Peeraphan, but he quickly realizes the curse is not harming her. In the end though, Peeraphan will go through a world of creatures she has never known about.

First, let's just talk about the cover: it is simply eye catching and beautiful.

The premise to me for Wings Once Cursed & Bound sounds beyond amazing and I love that it is marketed to fans of Sarah J. Maas and Jennifer L. Armentrout since they are two of my favorite authors, so that made me even more excited to read this book.

When I first started to read this, I was instantly transported into this books world and wanting to know anything and everything. The writing was well done and I was enjoying our characters.

But, somewhere around the middle of the book it started to feel meh for me. I just was not sucked in anymore and that continued all the way to the end of the book. There was a lot of amazing parts, but there were parts that felt lacking and I think maybe if I knew more of the Thai Mythology that was woven into this story and the Kinaree, then maybe I would have liked this more. 

For the ending of this book, it does feel rather incomplete with how it ended. I would not fully say it is a cliffhanger, but just an incomplete feeling. Thankfully this is only book one, so I am curious about the upcoming books and will be checking them out.

Twins, Clement and Cristina Trudeau who are sixteen years old are mourning their father's death and taking care of their sick mother. This all happens on the thirtieth anniversary of a young woman being murdered, a family being lynched, and one of the greatest magical massacres that occurred in New Orleans. But, the twins learn something. Their mother really is not sick like they thought, but is actually cursed and she has been cursed by someone on the magic council that their family used to rule. Someone is probably going to come after them next, but who? What will the twins really discover?

Blood Debts features black representation as well as LGTBQ representation.

When starting Blood Debts, I thought it was super promising and would be something I would absolutely love. Cristina was my favorite character at first due to her mourning her father and then having to go through a deep betrayal. Then, the other promising thing I thought Blood Debts had going on well was that the writing was good.

I quickly ended up loosing interest in Blood Debts and kept putting it off and down a lot. It took me over a month to even finish this.

I felt like the writing, the magic, and the world was not crafted fully and just skimmed along the surface to where everything fell flat. Due to these things, I felt like a not a lot of things were really going on and when it came to the twists, they felt like randomly occurred, but oddly were the type that did not even phase me. Additionally, I really do not feel like there was really any magic implemented in the book and was just mere mentions.

I ended up really getting annoyed with Clem and Cristina as the story went on due to their actions and inner thoughts.

Clement and Yves meet and I enjoyed their relationship and I felt like both characters were great for one another. I know this is a hot topic, but there is sex in this book and people either want sex in a young adult book or they do not. I really do not mind it as long as it does not go into full force smut, which this is what happened to the point I felt uncomfortable. I think I would not have been uncomfortable though if these characters were eighteen or over, but in reality these two characters are sixteen years old.

I really wanted to love this book, but really struggled. The writer does well with how they craft their writing, but ultimately fell flat. This definitely could have been amazing and I probably will check out this authors future work one day to see if their writing has changed.

The murder of planet Earth must be avenged and Kyr has trained for days to do so. Kyr has been raised in Grea Station that encompasses the last pieces of humanity. She has been preparing herself for a while to face the Wisdom, which just happens to be an all-powerful and a reality-shaping weapon that allowed the Mejoda to win against humanity. Kyr's brother becomes assigned by the The Command to certain death and on top of that, The Command assigns her to the nursery so she can bear sons. The only thing Kyr can do is plan to avenge humanity and will escape into a universe that she does not know and does not understand.

When I first heard about this book, I knew I just needed to read it. I do not read much sci-fi and want to get more into it and I had a feeling this would be one to add to my tbr so I can explore more of this generation.

I really, really wanted to like Some Desperate Glory, but I neither hate it or love it.

Some Desperate Glory has a lot of potential, but I feel like it did not go into full depth into what it really wanted to be and to take some risks to elevate the plot, world, and characters.

I really love this premise about Kyr wanting to avenge humanity and to become a warrior. I felt like the first quarter of the book does engage you and feels fast paced. Then, the queer representation was great as well.

For Kyr, I feel like she was an unlikeable character, but her development was good and made her feel real based off of the circumstances she was going through.

However, as I kept reading, I kept feeling like I was being transported out of the book and not really liking the characters or really caring what was going on.