For me, Queen of Shadows was the best of Throne of Glass (the series) so far. I am officially retracting my original complaint regarding reading The Assassin’s Blade right before it, because wow, those characters are a *focus* in this book.

I can’t say much else before the spoilers, but I will say that there is a very dark storyline in this installment focused on forced birth. THAT might be a bit much for you given the world we are currently inhabiting. I’ve provided more CW in the comments, as always, but just wanted to be clear on that!

🚨🚨🚨HERE BE SPOILERS🚨🚨🚨

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What it’s like to read The Assassin’s Blade: a haiku

Oh look, 5 lil books!

What is all this? Backstory?

Ouch, my emotions.

I enjoyed these glimpses into Celaena’s origins, even though I was dreading the end the entire time. I’m still not sure that reading this collection of novellas in the middle of the series for “maximum emotional impact” is a good choice. It’s certainly a choice. I think I may have had more patience and been more excited by all of these stories had I not known what was coming for a certain character. 

That said, my favorite of the five was The Assassin and the Desert aka Celaena re-enacts the Karate Kid. I just love a montage moment when a character goes through a huge change and I enjoyed the setting and finally getting the story on the Asterion-horse-stealing adventure that Celaena refers to so often in the rest of the series.

This is a super soft Victorian era monster reverse harem romance and it’s SO GOOD. The pacing and world building are cool, the FMC is really likeable and sex positive and the spice is super spicy. There is one scene with dubious consent and there are more than a few plot-driven scenes that are scary - please check the content warnings.

Happy #PrideMonth, also, I hope you're hungry! I've found a sub-sub genre that I am very much enjoying: queer romance set on cooking competition shows. After I reviewed Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, more than a few of you reminded me of Love and Other Disasters, which has been on my radar for quite some time after several rave reviews for it showed up in my feed! 

I knew I would love this book the moment I opened it, since it begins with Dahlia, one of the MCs, waxing poetic about onions. From there, we enter a Top Chef-style reality cooking competition featuring an array of characters, most notably, the other MC, London. This book is so soft and swoony, and I absolutely loved Dahlia and London not only together but in each of their beautiful human messiness.

This is the first book I have read with a nonbinary protagonist, and I am thankful for the window this book provided into London's existence and their day-to-day joys but also all of the small ways the gender binary and people's perceptions and assumptions about it either dragged them down or buoyed them up. I loved that each of the contestants on the show outside of Dahlia and London represented interactions with the general world. Most of all, I appreciated the care and thoughtfulness Anita Kelly put into this queer love story. I loved how fiercely Dahlia wanted to protect and hold London and also how much London wanted to do the same for Dahlia.

Of course I was intrigued by the depth of non-binary portrayal so immediately went to the author bio where I quickly discovered that Anita uses they/them pronouns, so that makes this an #OwnVoices read, too.

👍🏻Recommended! If you love cooking competitions and super swoony love stories told from unique and important perspectives, this is for you! If you enjoyed Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake or the Charm Offensive for their reality show settings, you will love this!

I stayed up late late late finishing Heir of Fire last night because I am an idiot and should have known better than to start the last hundred pages of any SJM book after 9pm, because there is no way I can put any of her books down at that point.

So yeah, I guess you could say it’s getting pretty serious.

Of the Throne of Glass (the series) books I have read so far, Heir of Fire was probably my least favorite. It’s a third book but it read like a second book - lots of moving characters around, character development, backstory and plot building. It was also challenging to stay engaged because there were three main storylines and one of them was ✨boring✨ (cough-cough CHAOL cough-cough). Thank god for my A1 buddy reader, @toobusyreadin to keep me on task.

On the other hand, I have now met Manon, who is totally terrifying, and Abraxos, who I will love forever no matter what. Dorian really grew on me in this one. Celaena had an amazing arc and I still adore her as an MC - she’s a complete badass but also really believable. Rowan is a grump after my whole heart. Aedion, I envisioned as Chris Hemsworth the whole time (NOT A COMPLAINT!).

If anything the plot in this reminded me a lot of Lord of the Rings and I was super happy about that. My lil nerd heart loves dragons, enchanted objects, mythologies and all that high fantasy jazz, and this book has allllll of those things.

Now, I go to The Assassin’s Blade but not before I read Love and Other Disasters by Anita Kelly for my RoNo break.

👍🏻Recommended. Can’t stop-won’t stop, gotta finish the series now!

I am absolutely, hopelessly obsessed with the Great British Bake Off, so Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake started on second base. (I realize that is a baseball term which makes it distinctly American but I know nothing about cricket or soccer, so you’re just going to have to deal with it.) I would like to read any and all of the baking/cooking show romance novels now. Also, this one? It’s a GBBO RoNo. 🍰🧁

Aaaaanyway - for once, I read the blurb on the back of the book so I went in expecting a love triangle but was NOT expecting the level of depth this book got into around several heavy topics including intense biphobia, s e x u a l assault, classism, mental health, gender norms, strained family relationships and the pressure of being on a reality TV show. I really enjoyed all of the characters in this book and they felt real to me. I wanted to rage, laugh, cry, celebrate and experience things with all of them.

Even so, I laughed while reading this a whole lot - sometimes from Alexis Hall’s extremely dry British humor and other times while listening to the audiobook and enjoying Fiona Hardingham’s absolutely brilliant narration.

My biggest gripe is that I wanted Rosaline to have more time with the guy she ended up with, because he was the sweetest character in this book, and Rosaline deserved someone who loved her just how she was and wasn’t trying to fit her into some mold to suit themselves. 🥺 

Instead, we got 300 pages of the other guy, who is an absolute doorknob. 😤

👍🏻Recommended! This is a sweet, funny, extremely British book that deals with some very intense topics. Please read Hall’s CW at the beginning of the book - there is a SA scene that is intense and Rosaline deals with biphobia from all corners.

Undoing my formal education with smutty mythology retellings pt 3: Wicked Beauty.

I worried at one point that my kindle would melt - this book is BEYOND HOT. 🥵🥵🥵

It’s basically American Ninja Warrior + political maneuvering + the hottest, swooniest throuple EVER. 

Helen considered her choice between a stern brunch daddy or cinnamon roll and said: WHY NOT BOTH?!

Since it’s #PrideMonth, here’s a little run down of all of the LGBTQIA+ rep: bi/pan MCs, a full-on poly relationship, lots of LGBTQIA+ side characters.

As usual, Katee gave us scorching hot 🌶🌶🌶 scenes but also amazing consent conversations AND incredible communication between the characters. Beyond navigating their throuplehood, the three MCs in this novel wrestle with ambition, love, jealousy, angst, intense pining, complex family relationships and toxic exes. AND WE GET A TRIPLE POV. 🫠🫠🫠

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 Three thumbs up, get it? Three thumbs up - GET IT! Highly recommended. This may be the hottest book you read this year. If you liked Neon Gods and Electric Idol, you will like this, but you could read it as a standalone if you wanted.