I received a free digital copy of this book from the publishers/author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Unravelling is the second book in Sara Ella’s Unblemished trilogy and for me, this book had weak points and strong points - most of them the exact likes and dislikes I had with the first book.

While I enjoy this world, and I think it’s amazingly well thought out, elaborate and magical - sometimes there can be a little bit of confusion for me about the Reflections and the Void/Verity. While there are maps at the start, I think this book could do with a little explanation/reminder about the reflection and which one is which, quick explainer about the Void and Verity and a glossary of characters and who are they separated into their callings.

One of my biggest problems with this book always falls back to the characters though - mainly Eliyana. I just don’t really know why I dislike her so much. She manages to be whiny and annoying all the time and though she wasn’t as many in this book as in the first, I felt her confusion over the Joshua/Ky situation a bit laughable and frustrating as it was pretty clear where she stood. It took her way too long to get there herself.

Ky continues to be my favourite character in this. I like how complex he is, and I also like that he’s not the average handsome guy but he has a bit of acne.

The really big gripe i have with this book is the same as the first as well and it’s all the references to songs, musicals and movies. It’s way too much and way too often. It pulled me out of the story and annoyed me every single time, and sometimes I had no idea what song/musical/classical piece of music the character was talking about so it meant nothing to me and ended up making me wonder if I was missing something by not knowing. I think we could have had moments such as Joshua and Eliyana’s duet where it was just a nice duet and we didn’t need to know it was I See the Light from Tangled.

I’m giving this book a 2.75-3 stars because despite the fact I enjoyed the world and magic again, not to mention Ky, I found myself just wishing the book was over. I will obviously read the last book cause I need to know how it all ends up but this series will unfortunately never be a favourite for me.

Magic Study is the second book in the Yelena Zaltana series that started off with Poison Study.

In Magic Study, Yelena is now off on a brand new adventure to learn to control the magic skills that she only recently discovered she had, and to meet the family she was taken away from at six years old and who she has lost all memory of.

This book is really fantastic, and for the most part is very fast-paced as well. Sitia is an extremely different country to Ixia, which is where Poison Study is set and I feel the world building and the obvious differences in each settings is told and built really, really well. Yelena has a lot of cultural differences such as how she talks and dresses to her confusion over beggars which do not exist in Ixia, a totalitarian society.

Yelena’s reunion with her family was really lovely (excluding Leif) and I really liked the way she bonded with her mother and father in her own way. It was just very touching, and lovely.

Yelena’s own journey with her magic is fascinating and the strength of her own power, and her self-acceptance of it is great but i have to admit one of my favourite elements of this series is Yelena’s relationship with Valek. I just think it’s so healthy and one I could root for all day long. Vale believes in Yelena’s strength, and her ability to handle things on her own and he knows she can take care of herself. Their respect for one another is just yes, all the way.

This book also never shies away from tough topics. In Poison Study, Yelena had been raped before the story officially began and we saw her have to deal with her demons and gradually heal from the trauma. In Magic Study, she has to help others to have experienced the same while at the same time not let her memories overwhelm her and it’s just so important and done really well in my opinion.

Vika and Nikolai are magical enchanters and now must compete with each other in The Crown's Game to become the Tsar's official enchanter of Russia. However, things are a bit complicated for the two when it's clear their magic is attracted to one another and even though they know that only one will be alive at the end of the game, they can't help but start falling in love with one another.

I listened to this book on audiobook and I really can't recommend it enough - it was fantastic. I was able to visually imagine and follow along with the entire story, from the setting to the magic as well as the characters and what they looked like. The accents were also excellent and the narrator did such a good job with both female and male characters and the different way they all talked, particularly noting their different statuses in Russian society.

I just loved everything about this book. I loved the type of magic Vika and Nikolai had and their different strengths and weaknesses and how they could build on what each other had created and really flowed together. I did love the relationship between the two and how it built up slowly, slowly until the last heartbreaking scene between them.

I could have done without Pasha being such a central character. I just didn't care for him and his obsession with Vika, though I do appreciate how he accepted she wasn't that into him and he wasn't going to force her feelings and stepped away. I do think his reaction to Nikolai's magic was a bit over the top. I also think Nikolai's meeting with his mother ended up a bit flatter than I had been expecting (though I do expect her to cause a huge kerfuffle in the second book).

This book is like The Night Circus meets Anastasia and it's honestly magical, Russian perfection.

A perfect short story for all dog lovers!

This is the tale (tail LOL) of five rescue dogs who are the only ones left unadopted on Christmas Eve and the conversations they have with one another during the night, as well as an adventure they find themselves on. This was just a perfect dose of sweetness, while also containing a serious message about the need for responsible homes for rescue dogs, not to mention some of the silly reasons some dogs are given up by their owners. I really, really loved this!

2.5 stars

Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe is a modernised retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice with not only a Christmas twist but a gender-swapped one too. The story focuses on Darcy Fitzwilliam’s return home to Ohio after a period of eight Christmases away from home. At her family Christmas party she reconnects with Luke Bennett and sparks fly. But the pair have a lot of issues to resolve before anything can happen.

I’ve never read a book more where I would have liked dual POV’s than this one. The entire story is told in Darcy’s POV and we don’t get Luke’s voice whatsoever and i really would have liked his point of view of things. I actually feel like, as a reader, I didn’t get a feel of Luke at all or what type of person he was (being a male ‘version’ of Elizabeth Bennett was not enough if you ask me). We don’t even get a lot of real conversations between Darcy and Luke - she makes out with him twice and then decides that she’s in love with him (mmm,okay).

I did like that Bingley was gay but I do think there were some cliche, stereotypical ‘gay best friend’ scenes such as the hat and scarf dance party thing they had at one point. Also I love and hate how they fell into being best friends when Darcy hadn’t talked to him for eight years.

I also wasn’t mad about the fact that Luke and Darcy both ended up being engaged to two different people in the book, in the course of less than a week and broke up with them in the same amount of time. Just yeah….no.

I feel like this had a lot of potential and I did like some elements of it (Darcy being a powerful, ass-kicking woman in the business world for one) but it fell short on so much more. It depended too much on being a P&P retelling and it needed a lot more to make the characters lovable.

3.5 Stars

Evie Taylor loves her job at Hardy’s department store in the middle of London. It has class and style not to mention history, or at least it did. Hardy’s is failing, and when Evie overhears it’s in danger of closing she’s determined to save it in the run-up up Christmas.

This was a sweet, festive book that made me really wish Hardy’s was real so I could visit in the heart of London, a city I love! I loved all the visual descriptions in this book from the different makeovers Evie completes in the different departments in the store to the types of clothes she begins to wear from her wardrobe of vintage goodies.

I also really liked that Evie got together a group of people that would often be overlooked or be ‘invisible’ in the running of the store - the tea-lady, the cleaners, the night security man and the delivery man. They mad up a very nice, mismatched group and it became clear they all cherished the company and the mission to save Hardy’s. I liked the little message the group portrayed that some people just need someone to talk to them, and realise they exist.

Evie is definitely a frustrating character at times. She’s definitely a wet blanket - she goes two years of allowing everyone she works with to believe her name is Sarah because she doesn’t have the courage to speak up and correct them. Near the end of the book, Evie gets very frustrated about how people have treated her but i personally don’t think they were all in the wrong. Yes, people could have asked her more questions about herself, and listened to her problems as much as she listened to theirs but at the end of the day they all often used her name (or what they thought was her name) and did seem to appreciate some of the work and help she did and gave.

The book was also slightly too long for me, and drawn out. The lies in her relationship with Joel could have ended a bit quicker especially as it was so obvious who she would end up.

I liked Evie’s relationship with her sister and her mom too!

3.5 Stars

I received a free copy of this book from Harper Collins in exchange for an honest review.

Callie is the twin sister of upcoming actress Tilda, and she feels pretty protective over her. So it’s understandable that Callie becomes worried when Tilda enters into a relationship with a controlling man called Felix. As Callie tries to figure out who Felix really is, she ends up becoming part of a deadly arrangement she never suspected.

This is the type of book that you just fall deeper and deeper into it as it starts becoming more twisted and strange with every page. All the characters seem a little bit off, even Callie who is telling the story. There’s some things she did and does in the book that really left me feeling uncomfortable and I almost wanted to look away from the pages but I just couldn’t.

This is a pretty smart book that keeps the reader on their toes. The connection between everything going on and Callie’s relationship with Scarlett online just gets weirder and weirder, and I genuinely began to fear for Callie’s safety as well. You really begin to suspect everyone and can’t figure who is in the right and wrong, or if everyone is just a creepy liar and I loved not really being able to figure it out.