wordsofclover's Reviews (2.16k)

 When Eilish Stack opens up her door one evening, she doesn’t expect to see the GNSB on her doorstep looking for her husband. Within a few weeks, her union worker spouse has disappeared and Ireland falls further under a totalitarian rule. As Eilish grapples with the loss of her husband and no answers to her questions, balancing her own work in an increasin hostile workplace and keeping her children together, civil war creeps closer and everyone’s lives are in danger. 

 

This was a gripping read and is one of those books that’s so horrifying yet well-paced that as soon as you pick it up, you can’t put it down until you’re finished. 

 

It was honestly terrifying and horrifying reading this at times thinking about how easy in many ways it could be for Ireland to fall under this kind of rule and for such extremism to be unleashed on the public and by the public. In some ways, it seemed far-fetched and dystopian but then I thought again about how this dystopian version of Ireland was a real life reality for many people in countries today and it’s just a bit mind-blowing and really makes you think about your privilege. 

 

I thought this was excellently written. I felt for the characters and their situation while also feeling a lot of frustration towards Eilish for some of her decisions, for her kids and their reactions and how they often treated their mother and exasperation to the outside world for not helping anyone. 

 

Highly recommend this one and I can understand why it won all the prizes! 

Wendy Darling is turning eighteen and looking forward to moving on from her town where she is haunted by the disappearance of her brothers five years earlier - and her own memory loss from this time. But more children have started to disappear and the police are questioning Wendy again about what she might remember when Peter Pan appears in her life - someone she only knows through the bedtime stories she used to tell her brothers. With Peter's help, the two of them might be able to work together to bring back the lost children.

This was okay for me and it's one of those book where nothing was really wrong with the story, it just didn't hit for me the way I hoped it would. I'm a huge Peter Pan fan and I think Aiden Thomas did the original story and characters justice in this book while also being able to write a unique spin on it.

I did find Wendy's character a bit boring and vanilla for me, and I would have liked her to have a bit more fire in her. I also felt like Wendy and Peter took way too long to actually get anywhere with the mystery of the shadow and the children, there was a lot of Wendy dodging Peter and getting herself into annoying scrapes where she needed rescuing or would be shouted at by her dad so the pacing of the story wasn't great in my opinion.

I picked this up after watching the movie as I was interested to see how the two would compare and I found I felt about them both similar -I liked parts but found both lacking in two parts.

Solene brings her 12-year-old daughter to a meet and greet with her favourite boy band August Moon (cough One Direction), and strangely, 39-year-old Solene finds herself flirting with 20-year-old boy band member Hayes Campbell (cough Harry Styles). What she thinks might just be a physical intimacy soon becomes more as they fall in love but in doing so Solene ends up in the public eye far more than she thought and it begins affecting her work life and the relationship with her daughter.

I found this book a mixed bag. I couldn't quite get a grasp on Solene and Hayes - I found Solene beautiful and a bit too perfect truth be told, and I also disliked how the author shoved Solene's artistic world and her being 'French' in the reader's faces every couple of pages (if anyone knows what a 'French mouth' is supposed to look like, let me know). I thought Solene's job as a gallery owner was very interesting but there were some parts where the book focused so much on art, I didn;t care (though in saying this, I'm not into art so I'm not the target audience either). And then there were times that Hayes just acted and said things that were too perfect, he was just unrealistic and they never really had the conversation that hovered between them as to why exactly he was always attracted to older women.

I found the age gap in this book a bit too icky. I'm glad in the book they changed it to 24 and 39, which was still a bit gross for me but I couldn't believe it that book Hayes was only 20 - he's practically still a teenager. And I don't care what Solene said about him having the body of a man, his brain wasn't fully developed yet, he hadn't even lived life outside of boy bandom yet. It was gross. And she was just that little too comfortable in with all the splendour and money his fame brought even if she was very stupidly naive about what dating him actually meant when it came to his fans.

Similar to the movie as well, I found both meet-cute scenes extremely underwhelming and didn't feel the chemistry between the characters. This did change in the movie for me by the first kiss and it took maybe a bit longer in the book. The romance/sex scenes were fairly steaming at parts though again I found some of them uncomfortable when I reminded myself he was 20 years old. The book did feel very repetitive at times though as it went travel, art show, sex, Solene feeling guilty, repeat a lot and after a while it all became a bit tedious.

I was quite shocked by the ending, it was just so abrupt and I felt it was quite a let down considering everything we had gone through with Solene and Hayes. I wasn't expecting a happy ever after with a bow on top but I expected more than what we got. Thank god they changed the movie ending as that would have been an hour and a half I wanted back in my life!

Will Trent and his girlfriend Sara are settling down and becoming more serious when their world is upended (again) as the two of them are called in to investigate after a retired detective is found murdered. Evidence discovered at the crime scene leads to Angie - Will's oldest friend and estranged wife - and it looks like she may be in trouble.

This book felt like an important one in the series as Angie has always been a threatening dark cloud over Will and Sara's relationship - both her hold on will, and her slightly psychotic rage towards Sara. In this book we finally see some real strength from Will as he finally stands up to Angie and she begins to realise she's doesn't have so much power over him anymore while at the same time we learn some really big things about Angie's past and why she is the way she is.

I always thought Karin Slaughter's introduction and continued portrayal of Angie in these books was interesting but also slightly puzzling. When we first meet her in book 1, we wee the connection between her and Will and she doesn't seem so bad but with each subsequent book her behaviour and her treatment of Will gets worse and worse. This book definitely lets us in on Angie's secrets and in a way can make us feel empathy for her as to why she acts the way she does but at the same time, she's so vile most of the time and how she talks to Will and makes him feel about himself when he would have done anything for her is so unforgivable.

The investigation in this is quite brutal as it looks into people with a violent past towards women from assault, gang rape, hush ups and drugs - plus as we find out from Angie abuse towards children as well. Like all Slaughter books, if you're sensitive to...well anything, you shouldn't read them as she always goes for the gritty!

Similar to Lena in the Grant County series, Angie is a character i've truly come to hate and I was disappointed we didn't get a real good riddance of her in this book, and I hate that we will continue to have this Angie shadow, never knowing when she will turn up again to ruin the day. I'm so afraid she will do something to Will and Sara, and after the ending of Grant County, I'm not sure I can go through that heartbreak again!

Iris and Roman are each other's competition as they both compete to become a columnist at their local paper. But with war looming beyond the city between gods Enva and Dacre, Iris finds herself alone when her brother goes to fight and begins to write letters to him - that mysteriously disappear. When someone begins to write back, Iris forges a deep connection with this mysterious stranger and this follows her as she leaves home - and Roman - behind to become a war correspondent.

This was a really enjoyable, and romantic read. We follow two people who are the outside are very different but their souls are the same as they both face family struggles, loss, grief and the terrifying realities of war and what this means. I thought the world was great being so similar to ours but just that bit different with the inclusion of gods and a war between them that drags in innocent humans on either side. I did wonder how this works out for the humans who are actually doing the fighting. How can you win against a God? It did feel all a little bit hopeless at times.

I loved the relationship between Roman and Iris and how it developed, as well as that between Iris and Carver. There was a soft romance on the verge of great between them, and you can't help but completely fall for it. I do think they moved from 'oh I like you' to love and marriage very, very quickly but at the same time I do kind of get it as they are literally only a town away from war and enemy forces. I think I would have liked a bit more time with them as they got to know each other in different ways before everything went to hell.

I think the mystery between Enva and Dacre is a really big intriguing part of this story and it's just lightly touched on and will hopefully be explored more in the next novel. I'm looking forward to reading it very soon! 

Luke Anders feels left out as all of his best friends and teammates have found their life partners. He's not sure if it will ever happen for him when he ends up meeting Natalie during a cousin's wedding in Mexico, and the two hit it off immediately striking up a long distance romantic connection. A wild night in Vegas ends up with rings on the their fingers and as they try to figure out what to do next, PR needs come first and is it weird to date your wife?

This was thoroughly enjoyable. Luke was always a bit of a background character in the other Sleet books but I'm so glad he got his own book and his own love story. Going into this I actually thought that Luke's romantic interest was going to be Steph, Jackson's sister, and we would have the trope of 'brother's best friend' but instead we got 'accidental marriage' and I was here for it.

I really like the relationship and connection between Luke and Natalie. It felt very real, nothing was forced and I also like the maturity in their relationship and how with many things, they took it in their stride. I believed in them and I rooted for them and I loved how Luke was always so in the relationship, as was Natalie. I'm not sure if we could make the blip at the end a third act breakup as it wasn't a very long separation - a matter of a couple of hours- but i actually think we didn't even need it. And the scene in the board meeting was a bit dramatic and farcical for me, as there is no way that something like that would ever prove you are able to run a company (your actual work does that?!).

I do think you can see a big improvement in the quality and control of SJ Tilly's writing in Sleet Princess in comparison to the other Sleet books published several years ago. The flow of the story was so much betetr as we jumped between each character with Luke and natalie continuing where we left off instead of backtracking and repeating moments in ways I had seen in other books. The sexy scenes were hot and passionate, with also some added humour with the Blizz element (IYKYK).

And just to add I really appreciate the female friendship at the core of this series and how even Natalie who was a brand new character for readers and the other characters was accepted into the flow by the girls, and made to feel welcome. I think moments like this are just so important especially as in some romance books there can be a women Vs women vibes where this series is the compete opposite and I've always loved it.

I'm sad this series is over as I've really enjoyed my time with the Sleet team (lowkey want a jersey) and now I just have to decide what my next SJ Tilly series will be.

Meghan has always been the feistiest out of all her friends, and is quite happy livcing life by herself as an independent woman. Until she meets Sebastian LeBlanc, the goalie of the Minnesota Sleet hockey team. There is an immediate sexual connection between the two but Meghan is fcusing on her friends getting their happy ever after to worry too much about hers, and when her friend gets hurt while she's distracted by Sebastian, she can't forgive herself.

This was fun and a bit more daring and out there in some ways than the other books as we are dealing with characters who both a little bit extra than other romantic couplings we have followed in this series. There is a definite chemistry between Meghan and Sebastian that is so palpable, it practically drips of the page and I didn't mind the nickname Banshee as it definitely suits Meghan a lot (I just don't think I'll ever be over how overused Kitten was in Sleet Kitten).

As in other books, this is fun and enjoyable for a quick read with a hot romance but the writing/editing in it isn't always the greatest. I do often find some parts are overwritten, characters over explain themselves or just talk too much at times in a way I feel identifies a self-published novel from a traditionally published one but once you know to expect some of these things, you can ignore them and focus on the story. I would have completely scrapped Meghan's diary entries as they feel they gave nothing to the story and could have just been usual POV chapters.

I did find the first act break up in this book a bit much and over dramatic from Meghan and there are times when there is miscommunication among several of the characters that could be easily solved. I also feel the 'don't want a relationship' is sometimes an easy thing to use in a romance as a blocker and I just never believed this from Sebastian as every single action of his contradicted his words so I would have liked to have seen a better obstacle in the way between these two and really, there wasn't really anything there - they were just being stubborn.

Looking forward to the final book in this series!