Look, 9 times out of 10 when an author decides to rewrite their book from the male love interest's perspective, it's not interesting and feels wholly unnecessary. LOVER is that 1 book out of 10 that really adds something to the story, and it's also basically a masterclass in how to write a gentlemanly simp who is respectfully obsessive. HAWT.
Do NOT read this book if you haven't already read THE CRUEL DARK because it contains major spoilers for the book. Before I dive into my review, I will say that these two books are set during the roaring twenties, and are a lushly written gothic saga about a girl with a tragic past coming to help a hot and tormented professor with his research, only to discover that the house that they're working in harbors dark secrets that inextricably twine with both of their own sordid histories.
Callum is such a great hero. He had some of the best lines in this book ever, and the spicy scenes were both elegant and hot. A Michelin starred dish of spice, if you will. I also loved seeing Millie through his eyes. I loved her a lot in her own book, and getting to see the hero falling in love with her, being in love with her, was a real treat.
Does this book do much for the plot? No. But it advances the story emotionally and is actually a very thoughtful and complex piece of fan service that goes beyond a mere smuttening, so I am happy.
I bought this book because of a teaser I saw the author post on Threads that made me think this was going to be a really twisted dark romance with dub con (MY FAVORITE). It wasn't quite that, but I loved it anyway. SONG OF THE DEMON COURT ended up being an examination of personal faith, an enemies to lovers romance with high stakes, and a pretty interesting character portrait of two flawed and damaged people slowly learning to trust each other-- all with a Jareth-coded hero framed within an erotic pied piper retelling. WHAT.
Annika lives in what I believe is medieval Bavaria. The children in town are dying of a plague and the council have called upon a mythic race (kind of like demon elves?) called the pipers to cure the children with enchanted song. However, they cannot afford to pay the price and they know it. But because The Men(TM) are stupid and stubborn, they go ahead with the plan anyway, and the pipers decide to take the children away as punishment.
Annika alone goes to the kingdom of Laute to get the children back. Instead of forking them over, Loic, the son of the king, agrees that she can look them over as a sort of nanny in exchange for being his plaything. Disgusted, Annika agrees, and is then surprised when he proceeds to mostly not touch her. She came to this kingdom playing a game of her own, but it seems like Loic is playing one, too. And the stakes have never been higher.
So this was a really fun read. I loved that Annika was a single mom and her body wasn't perfect. She was brave but made stupid decisions, which, don't we all. I never disagreed with or failed to understand anything that she did, though. Loic on the other hand is a true morally grey character. He reminds me a lot of some of Anne Stuart's heroes, particularly the one in PRINCE OF MAGIC. Towards the end, he did a lot of things that were hard to like, since he wasn't truly a villain character, but you know what they say: hurt people hurt people. He was basically the fantasy equivalent of that. AND OH MY GOD, the author makes him suffer. This is a man who is put through hell for his cruelty, and has to really grovel to get his HEA. I actually felt so sorry for him by the end.
The world building was SO detailed and creative and I thought the writing was beautiful. I was surprised by the heavy religious themes. I'm not religious at all but I thought they added to the medieval setting in a really rich and authentic way. THE LAST HOUR OF GANN was similar, especially in how the hero's faith was tested and challenged, and I loved that book as well. I think it's thematically relevant to a lot of people. But the way the heroine is judged and internalizes some of her teachings to her own detriment might be hard to read for people who have experienced religious abuse/trauma.
ALSO I loved how sign language was so casually and cleverly integrated into the plot. That rep is unusual and shouldn't be, so it was especially great to see here.
Apparently there's a sequel coming out and I will definitely be first in line for it!
That might be one of the easiest five star ratings I've ever given out, which is funny because I didn't think femdom was even my kink. Apparently it is. Look at me, learning something new about myself today. God, I LOVE THE INTERNET.
Kate works at a tech company owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Volkov. One day, he tries to take a paper off her desk while she's on the phone. Not realizing who he is, she slaps his hand away and snaps at him. Then, she has one of the biggest "oh shit" moments of her life. When he calls her into his office, she thinks he's going to fire her. Instead, he tells her flat-out that he's a submissive who wants her to Dom him and that he really likes her style. Likes it about a $5000 a week amount, actually.
Sure, it's basically against all HR policies, but a girl's got bills to pay.
I loved PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT so much. I'm actually surprised how many people seemed to hate Kate (lmfao, jk, no I'm not) because she was the perfect inversion of the alpha with issues who has a heart of gold stereotype. Her upbringing and insecurity around money made her reluctance and attraction to this relationship totally understandable, and I liked how she took care never to push her hot Russian paypig too far (also the fact that she made him donate to charities to punish him? HILARIOUS).
Chemistry was off the charts, Mikhail was super hot, and it has one of the best grovel scenes ever. Covers everything from aftercare to discussions about expectations and feelings, and Kate was a super likable and lovable character with very relatable problems. What's not to like? I might have to buy this in physical because I adored it so much I want to have a copy with me always.
Note: this book has been rereleased as CASTLE OF SECRETS but I personally like the older title and cover better.
Amanda Grange is a new-to-me author. I actually found one of her books at a thrift shop and it had been critically panned. Bad average ratings don't usually scare me off, though, and when I had finished reading MR. DARCY, VAMPYRE, I actually found that I had had an incredibly good time, 2.89 average rating or no. I found out that a lot of her backlist is actually on KU, so I started downloading her books one after the other, and each was better than the last!
STORMCROW CASTLE is an absolutely fantastic book, which hits all the notes you would expect in a gothic romance. It's very Jane Eyre in nature, minus the governess bit, so if you enjoy books that have the Jane vibe, you will eat this up on a silver spoon.
Helena is engaged to this guy she's kind of ambivalent about, but when she goes to the castle where her aunt works, she finds out that her aunt has mysteriously disappeared-- to visit a "sick sister," except Helena, being her niece, knows that her aunt doesn't have a sister. Disturbed, she gets the brilliant idea to pretend to be the new housekeeper so she can infiltrate the house and get the intel on her aunt's whereabouts.
Lord Torkrow (doesn't his name sound like a Pokemon???) is the man who owns the castle, although everyone in town refers to him and his family as stormcrows, which seems to be a bird of ill-omens. Strange cries come from the attic, there's a rumor that he was in love with his brother's wife and caused both their untimely deaths, and now, with the missing aunt, Helena soon wonders if maybe Torkrow is a serial murderer-- and if maybe he might plan to do away with her, too.
I just had so much fun with this book. There's sinister graveyard shenanigans, secret rooms, masquerade parties, beautiful writing, longing looks, and, in tradition of Jane Eyre, a hero who is described as ugly at a first glance, which is very Edward Rochester. I seem to recall that the heroine was plain as well(?), and I really enjoyed that. Especially since, with all her detective work and banter, Helena gives the hero plenty of reasons to respect her beyond wanting to bang her because she's hot. (Not that that isn't sometimes the vibe, too.) I'm honestly shocked this author isn't more popular.
This was an impulse download because I kept seeing it being suggested to me every time I went on Amazon. On a whim, I downloaded THE CRUEL DARK and ended up completely obsessed. It's kind of like a threeway cross between Gothikana, Jane Eyre, and RoseRed, but set in the 1920s with a headstrong heroine who has come to a remote and supposedly haunted mansion named Willowfield to help a hot and standoffish professor with his research, only to realize that nothing about the house-- or the man-- is truly as it seems.
The lush writing and rich setting are good enough for those who read their gothics for the vibes, but the characterizations and SPICE are also top tier. Spice does nothing for me if there's no emotional element to it, so I was delighted that the chemistry between Callum and Millie basically set the pages on fire. They're so good together, and the dangerous edge to Callum's character makes it even better.
I was thinking this was going to be a four star read for a while because there were a few niggling things that weren't my fave, but then that TWIST flew out of nowhere and everything suddenly flew neatly into place, and I was like holy shitteth, there is no way that anything that made me gasp out loud like that is getting anything less than the full five stars. I don't make the rules. (JK, I do.)
If you're a fan of Keri Lake, you need to read this book.
Loved how this managed to capture the vibe of an old skool HP in the vein of Charlotte Lamb, but with a modern feminist twist and way more smut. RETURN TO MONTE CARLO also made me enjoy several tropes I hate, including secret baby and marriage in crisis. PLEASE let this be a series she's planning, I beg of you. I love the retro vibe without the stranglehold of dated sexism.
I'm honestly surprised at how many people were hating on Diane as the heroine (JK, no I'm not). People were saying she was immature but she was young. She's twenty. I was a hot mess when I was twenty. She's married and mostly has her shit together. She's basically a beautiful rube who got lucky and married way above her head to an older man with weird kinks she doesn't quite understand but (mostly) get her off. So in this case, the marriage in crisis element works because they literally come from two very different worlds.
Marco, her husband, is an Italian business tycoon. Lately, he's been neglecting her and Diane is afraid he's cheating. He's a hard man to read, the pinnacle of the strong and silent type with BDE Daddy energy. When their anniversary dinner goes to shit and results in a broken heirloom and a telenovela-style slap, Diane is disgraced and ends up leaving Marco and his family to return back to her hometown in Oklahoma.
I don't want to spoil too much but I thought the misunderstandings between them were really well done. I loved the dual POV, loved both narrators, and thought it was great to see Marco fall in love with his wife all over again: this time, not as a pretty doll he placed on a pedestal, but as the real flesh and blood article behind the painted face. We also STAN a grovel that has the man on his knees in front of his entire family begging her not to leave (YAS). Speaking of the family, they were interesting too. Even the villains of this story had interesting little twists to their characters, and I loved Rosanella.
Cate C. Wells was a new to me author who made me love mafia (another genre I usually don't like). At this point, I think I'm probably going to read everything she writes, regardless of whether it's a trope I enjoy or not. She is so fucking talented and I just love her characters and her worlds.
I'm kind of surprised this doesn't have way more reviews because it's so good. This is like the dark romance version of B.G. Harlen's BREAK HER, in the sense that it takes a Hannibal/Clarice dynamic and turns it into erotica, but whereas BREAK HER is just erotica (which borders on horror and torture porn), IN SESSION is more of a very dark and taboo erotic romance that examines its characters in psychological depth.
Avery is a psychiatrist who sometimes handles court-ordered patients. Her newest one is a man named Nash Wyatt, a convinced serial killer. He immediately starts pushing boundaries and trying to get into her head and Avery is a little alarmed at how she responds to him-- with disgust, yes, but also in ways that go beyond clinical fascination.
Even though this is a novella, it feels like slow-burn because not much happens until the end. It's so worth it, though. From the very beginning I was fascinated with these characters and had to know how the story would end. Some of the dirty talk wasn't my cup of tea (like when he tells princess to make her asshole "wink" lol), but 99% of it, I was toooootally on board with. If you're into books with CNC, this is right up there with WILLING VICTIM and ASKING FOR IT. I'd read anything else this author writes.
Update: Bumping up to a full five stars because I can't stop thinking about this book.
This book was absolutely insane, like FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC meets Midsommar. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did, because this is some of the most depraved shit I've read in a while. Without going into spoilers, THE ECLIPSE RITUAL is the story of Obedience and Ronan, and a society that oppresses women and forces them to be brides against their will if they are chosen.
I liked Obedience's gradual questioning of her faith. I thought it was really well done and appropriately terrifying. Any book where one of the bad guys gets a piece of his dick nailed to a wall is going to be pretty fucked up. I also liked that all of the characters were 18+ and that as psychotic as the hero was, he had his own internal logic that he was following to try to prove his twisted love to the heroine.
Perfection, thy name is Ann Aguirre. MIRROR, MIRROR is a spicy feminist fairytale that turns the wicked stepmother trope on its head. Trude has been in love with Viggo since they were children, and he used to love her too, until he fell for their friend, Lisabet, instead, and the other cruel, beautiful little girl stole him away for good.
But when Lisabet dies, Viggo marries Trude. And when she comes home to the man she has been in love with her whole life and his beautiful lonely young daughter, it seems as if she's finally getting the family she has always longed for. Dreams really do come true.
Except... Viggo holds her at a distance, sleeping with her-- sometimes using her roughly-- but never telling her that he loves her. And Albie, the daughter, is babyish and cunning, affectionate one minute and oddly cruel the next. And then, the mirror arrives...
I just loved this book from start to finish. The lush prose, the slow pacing, the build-up of the household and how it was expanded into a claustrophobic, creepy little world, and the quiet, loving strength of the heroine. It was all magnificently done. I read the first book in this series of standalones, BITTERBURN, and liked it, but didn't love it. That book walked so this book could fucking fly, and the little call-out to the previous book was so well done.
Honestly, no notes. Between this and THE THIRD MRS. DURST, Aguirre kills it at fairytale retellings and gothic romances. It looks like there was supposed to be a third book in this trilogy, a standalone Bluebeard retelling (gender-swapped! OMG!) but it seems as if it might have been dropped. That's heartbreaking if true. I know that her witchy books are her best-sellers right now, so I get why she's attending to those, but I'm also praying to every god I know that she'll write another fairytale.
WILLING PREY was the primal kink book I've book looking for all my life. Shane, a socially awkward lawyer, pays Claire, a schoolteacher divorcee, $30,000 to hunt her for 30 days. The catch is that she has to make it difficult by putting up a fight. He doesn't like easy hunts.
I liked this book a lot. The sex scenes were great and I loved how sweet Shane was (when he wasn't hunting lol). Where do I find a hot lawyer to make cardio fun? Even though there isn't much in the way of conflict, I thought the X-rated games of tag and hide and seek really added a lot of suspense. I did expect more of a third act conflict than what I got, though. Since Claire is a school teacher and the U.S. is such a dick when it comes to morality clauses, I was expecting someone (maybe her douche ex?) to blackmail her, or something like that that would force them to unite as a couple against a common enemy.
But overall, WILLING PREY was great. I thought it was interesting that the author decided to make Shane a switch. At first I wasn't sure how I felt about that, but since "hunting" was so new to him and he was questioning his sexuality in such an open and thoughtful way, I guess it made sense to his character, after all. And Claire seemed super into it, so I loved that for her.
Definitely can't wait to read more from this author.
I got this from Stuff Your Kindle day because the title sounded deliciously gothic and I think it's my favorite selection so far. THE LOST LORD OF CASTLE BLACK has everything I love in a historical romance: a sexy and dangerous hero, hidden identity, childhood friends to lovers, gothic vibes, murder subplots, and a headstrong and likable heroine.
Agatha and Nicholas were a wealthy married couple on business in Europe when Agatha cheated on her husband with a potential spy. On their way home, in disgrace, their ship suffered catastrophic damage and they were separated from their young son, Graham.
Now, years later, Graham has returned to Castle Black to take what is his. Only his mother has survived all these years, and his cousin, Edmund, has taken over the estate, acting as regent for his half-brother, Christopher. Also living at the estate is Beatrice, Nicholas's ward, who grew up with Edmund, Christopher, and Nicholas. Once, the four of them were close, but life at the castle under its new corrupt ownership has inextricably tainted them all.
This was so good, OMG. There was steam, there were scary villains, there was ROMANCE. I wouldn't exactly call this a gothic romance but man, it sure was gothic-infused. The danger gave the budding relationship between Graham and Beatrice some much-needed stakes, and even though it verged a little on insta-love, I thought it was pretty clever to make them childhood friends as a way of explaining some of that instantaneous trust and fondness. Graham was such a dreamboat too. When he told her she was HIS? And that nobody else could touch her? Swoon City: population me.
WOW. This is everything I want out of a dark gothic romance: strong heroine, tortured hero, vibes for days, moral ambiguity, just the tiniest bit of dub-con and a little bit of kink, and a little bit of the paranormal. I'm honestly shocked Grace Callaway wrote this, to be honest, because her newer stuff seems like it's for the fluffies, but this was DARK. Also, it's a Jane Eyre retelling?
I loved it.
Abigail Jones works as a maid in the Earl of Huxton's house. She's bookish and quiet and keeps to herself, but beneath the prudish exterior lies a dark secret: her mother was a prostitute who died in an asylum having fucked-up visions, and Abigail fears she'll end up exactly the same. She has nightmares constantly, and sometimes, during the day, she sees things that terrify her... and excite her.
After an encounter with the Earl in the library (ahem), he promotes her to the role of secretary, entrusting her as his confidant. But the closer she gets to him, the less she really knows. What's the deal with the painting of the creepy but beautiful woman in his library? What about the mysterious death of his late wife and his older brother? Where does he go all day and why does he sleep with so many women? The questions keep piling up, and the more there are, the less sure Abby is that she wants to know the answer. This doesn't even really scrape at the surface of what the book is REALLY about but I don't want to spoil things.
No, seriously. That WTF pivot in the middle is priceless.
I just loved this book so much, okay? It showed up on a list of JANE EYRE retellings and since this was one of the few that seemed to be taking the tried and true gothic route, I was immediately intrigued. The way that the author wove the foundational bits into her story while still making it absolutely her own was ingenious. This is one of those books where after I finished it, I walked away thinking, "I wish I'd thought of that." Even when things got kind of weird, I was still into it... because it was my brand of weird. The atmosphere was just as good as the romance, and the writing was simply luscious.
I'm surprised this book has such low ratings but I think part of the problem is how it was probably marketed. The contemporary historical romance crowd tends to prefer lighter fare, so if this was marketed with them in mind as an audience, I think many of them would be disgusted or put off. In terms of theme, I feel like this would actually be a better match for most dark romance readers: the gore, depravity, and morally gray antihero just fit in really neatly with what they tend to want.
Anyone who enjoys historical romances on the darker side will love this book.
MORBIDLY YOURS is a profoundly romantic book that manages to tackle friends-to-lovers (one of the hardest tropes to do well, in my opinion), grief, death anxiety, enrichment of life, self-advocacy, and interesting and nuanced relationships, all with equal mastery.
Callum is a mortician who is going to lose his funeral home if he doesn't get married because of a stipulation in his grandfather's will. Lark, on the other hand, is a grieving widow who has come to Ireland to work as an animation director in Galway. When they meet, it's a clash of personalities at first, but they quickly end up getting to know each other better than they expected because they're neighbors.
This book was pure perfection. I'm going to overlook the cruelty of Ms. Fairbanks making me fall in love with a man who doesn't exist. I loved the way that the OW and OM ended up being delightful people who furthered the story in interesting and unexpected way. I liked how Callum wasn't traditionally masculine, and that he had a stutter. He's also demisexual and I thought that rep was handled beautifully.
I am absolutely seething with jealousy that this was a debut effort. It is so good, and I will absolutely read whatever this author puts out there next. There aren't a lot of romances that feel so real, that you can just totally lose yourself in the story because they feel like your friends, but this is one of them.
If you heard an outraged pterodactyl-sounding screech of rage, that was me when I got to the cliffhanger at the end of this book. I probably shouldn't be surprised, though. Having read other series by this author, I can definitely confirm that this is 100% her thing.
I'll try not to be mad.
Keyword: try.
I'm actually really impressed with how polished this book is compared to some of this author's other works. In PRIVATE PROPERTY, she has really honed her writing style into something dark and richly atmospheric, with slow-burn sexual attraction and, of course, lots of smut. I think going into this book expecting it to be a carbon copy of JANE EYRE is a mistake, since that's obviously not what the author is trying to do. This is one of those books that feels more like an homage than a straightforward retelling-- even if there's a wicked cliffhanger.
Jane Mendoza is a biracial nanny who is moving from Texas to Maine to take care of a girl named Paige, the niece of the tortured and very imposing Beau Rochester. I think the author did a good job capturing what a manipulative dick Rochester was, and how he basically did it for his own amusement, and because he knew he could get away with it. Some of the stand-offs between Jane and Beau felt very much in keeping with the source material and more than a couple of them made me smile.
Even though this is smut, it is Smut with Plot(TM) which makes a world of difference because it allows for an emotional connection between the two leads that fuels all their scenes together. I liked how Jane talked about how when her Latinx father died, she felt as if her connection to her culture was severed. The way that grief was approached in this book was also really well done. The author shows, rather than tells, us how disillusioned Beau has become with the wealthy set he used to party with, and Jane's abusive and grief-stricken past allow her to forge a connection with his defiant and grieving niece, who is about to flunk out of the first grade because she is refusing to do her school work.
I will say that the second half is a bit weaker than the first half, just because it felt like the author stopped caring as much about the atmosphere and tension once Jane and Beau started hooking up, but I devoured this so eagerly that I really can't give it less than five stars. It's one of my favorite Jane Eyre retellings that I've read, and now I'm feeling the urge to binge-read some more, all thanks to this book.
THE DIM SUM OF ALL THINGS was advertised in the back of an old chicklit I thrifted not too long ago. I didn't much care for that chicklit, but I sure perked up when I saw this book. A snarky chicklit about a Chinese heroine unlucky in love in San Francisco? SIGN ME UP. Publishers were so bad about marketing diverse books in the 2000s. I am constantly finding "new" titles that came out 10, 15, 20+ years ago, which were written by authors of color, and so many of them are unbelievably good.
Like this book.
Which you might not believe if you go off the average rating. The reviews for this book are pretty negative but I absolutely adored this book. Lindsey was such a likable heroine. I'm shocked that so many people are saying she isn't. Maybe because she doesn't feel like one of the stereotypically plucky PoC characters that were typical of the aughts, created to be the comic relief or the moral support? Because if you're going into this book expecting stories from a woman who is so grateful to be here, and would gladly be your token Asian friend, Lindsey is not that girl. Lindsey is the opposite of that girl. Lindsey is actually very bitter about the constant fetishization and microaggressions she faces as an Asian woman living in the U.S. at the peak of party culture/raunch culture. She also feels disconnected and embarrassed from her culture, while simultaneously wanting to be more of a part of it, and the biggest part of this book is about Lindsey growing more comfortable with herself and her history-- on her terms.
God, I loved her. Even though this book is written in third person, her narrative is quite colorful and really flavors the prose. If you weren't a party girl, you were going to be pretty bitter and pissed off in the 2000s. So I really related to Lindsey, and loved her for being the bitter bitch that she was. And she's never mean, mind. She's just incredibly cynical. Also, this is honestly one of the most honest and unflinching portrayals of San Francisco that I've ever encountered. The rich history, the gentrification, the diversity, the grossness. I've been to almost all of the places that Lindsey talks about in this book and the descriptions of them were so good. I was not at all surprised to learn that the author lived in the Sunset district. A lot of what she wrote about in this book, I feel like you'd really have to live in the area to know. I thought it was hilarious that Lindsey works for this fake woke vegan newspaper company, and how utterly obnoxious and sanctimonious they were. When she got sent to a diversity meeting at the Palace Hotel just because she's the only Chinese person in her workplace, I guffawed.
Surprisingly, I also really liked the romance, too. AND IT'S A WORKPLACE ROMANCE! WHAAAAAT. I normally hate those. In my reviews of other aughts chicklits, I have sometimes criticized them for being too dated. And while there are a lot of dated things in this book-- slut-shaming, off-color jokes, the expected aughts fat-phobia-- this book was really progressive in a lot of ways. Even though they play some games of the He's Just Not That Into You variety, Michael is so sweet to her. Their flirting was really cute. HE BUYS HER A HELLO KITTY TOASTER AS A GIFT. Also, I thought it was a clever choice on the author's part to make him of Chinese ancestry but white-passing (he's only a quarter Chinese), because she then discusses, through Lindsey, the privilege that Michael faces as a man who can hide his Asianness, and who can express and identify with his culture solely on his own terms. Lindsey, who very much does not look white, does not have this privilege.
Oh, and the representation of women in this book was also great. Lindsey has a pretty healthy friendship with a Filipinx woman named Mimi. When she goes to this party, there are some "slutty" Asian women with dyed blonde hair that she initially writes off as being snooty and boy crazy, but when Lindsey gets sick at the party and shits her pants, these women take her to the bathroom and CLEAN HER OFF, and are just so nice to her, and it was honestly such a great moment because it was very much a maybe-don't-judge-women-by-how-they-look-and-equate-that-to-their-moral-worth kind of situation. I was kind of afraid that they were going to double-cross her, because the Mean Girl Reverse Uno Card was a frequent plot twist of this time, but nope. They do their good deed and then peace out. Also, I loved that the shitting your pants thing wasn't played for laughs. The 2000s were full of fecal humor, but this was just portrayed as a serious and unfortunate situation.
Lastly, Lindsey at one point goes to China with her grandmother Pau Pau (WHO I LOVED) and this is another really impressive moment in the book because it forces Lindsey to confront some of her own privilege as someone who grew up with relative wealth, which she finds out when she meets her "relatives" and finds out that they have, comparatively, nothing. This is also the portion of the book where she finds out a lot about her grandmother's history, which comes out slowly as they travel across China (good parts and bad), and it was just so beautifully done. Even though Lindsey doesn't like some of the aspects of her trip (like the squatting toilets and some food that doesn't appeal to her finicky tastes), I liked how she appreciated it as a learning experience and grew from it.
I could talk for ages about what I liked about this book but then you might not read it for yourself and I also don't want to spoil any more than I already have. THE DIM SUM OF ALL THINGS is not a perfect book by any means, but it's fun and colorful and real, in a way that a lot of books of this type are not. Even though the ending felt like a little bit of a non-sequitur, I didn't dislike it. I wish this was part of a series because I didn't want to let these characters go. I loved them all. How has this author written so few books? I'm feeling the urge to go out and buy up everything from her backlist.
This book broke my heart and then put it back together about fifty times over the course of my reading this book. LORD OF THE BEASTS is the sequel to THE FOREST LORD, and the hero of this book, Donal, is the son of the hero of the previous book. That doesn't always work, but here it's done magnificently. Donal is half-fae and has the ability to speak to animals. He's kind of like a faerie Dr. Dolittle, and indeed, tells people that he's a veterinarian.
When he meets the heroine, he saves her and her cousin from a rampaging elephant that's escaped from the zoo. Then she goes to his estate, which is basically a farm filled with animals, and realizes that he's also the guardian of the girl who almost robbed her loathsome fiance-to-be, Viscount Inglesham. And seeing his prowess with animals, she ends up having him come to her estate to examine the desolate animals in her menagerie, all of which have been rescued from poachers, in addition to offering a permanent home for his ward, Ivy.
I liked the first book in this series a lot, but it had some notable flaws: uneven pacing, an unbelievable villain, a wishy-washy hero, and a climax that felt a little too, well, pile-on. This book, by contrast, was EVERYTHING I wanted. Donal actually reminded me a lot of Julian Sinclair from DUKE OF SHADOWS: he's noble but so, so lonely, and feels like an outcast from society because of his mixed heritage. He's soft-spoken and soft-hearted, but man, you do not want to fuck with this man or anyone he cares about, because he will END you. That's the stuff of dreams, srsly.
And the heroine in this book, Cordelia Hardcastle, was wonderful. A lot of authors write heroines who are strong and independent, but I liked how Cordelia wouldn't let anyone in and was afraid to let herself feel dependent on anyone. She had such a sad backstory and I loved her so much. I also liked how some of her kindness was selfish, even though it was coming from a good place, and how the author talked about how sometimes we think we're doing good, even though we're really serving ourselves best. There was just so much nuance to her character and she was absolutely perfect for Donal.
There's so much I want to say about this book. Like, how Donal had a teenage ward who was crushing on him and it wasn't creepy at all (seriously the bar is on the floor at this point, but everything about their relationship was handled so deftly). Or how the love for animals in this book was just so wholesome and believable (although there are some animal deaths in here, and talks about animal cruelty). In terms of the environmental messages, there's an almost Ferngully feel to this book at times, but it's done so well that it doesn't feel heavy-handed at all. And sometimes secondary characters take up too much page-time but I loved Ivy and Tod's stories just as much as Donal's and Cordelia's.
Oh, and the VILLAINS. The villains in this book were so good. Especially since the author made them just human enough that you can sort of see where they're coming from (terrifying).
I could ramble on and on but I won't. Just know that this is now a Susan Krinard fan account and I'm probably going to be reading a whole bunch of her other books in the very near future.
Karina Halle can be a hit-or-miss author for me. I've quite enjoyed some of her books and others I have disliked immensely. But I've never picked up one of her books and thought, "OH. <3" Until now. So thank god I'm so stingy with my five-star ratings, because otherwise, how else to showcase how this stands out from all the rest? (Cut to me: defending being a picky bitch.)
But seriously, THE ROYALS NEXT DOOR is a wonderful book and to be honest, I don't think the summary does it justice; it makes it seem like this book is going to be sickly saccharine sweet, when nothing could be farther from the truth. This is not just a romance novel, it's also about right to privacy, mental health, dealing with trauma, and loving romance. In some ways, it feels like a nostalgic throwback to some of my favorite aughts chicklit authors, like Sophie Kinsella and Meg Cabot, where romance novels and chick-lit were often interchangeable and focused on the development of the heroine's personal journey as much as the romance.
Piper is an elementary school teacher who lives on a Canadian island. It's scenic and picturesque and private, so obviously it makes sense that the legally-distinct-from-Meghan-and-Harry English duchess and duke would make it their own private getaway. It also makes sense that they would have a super hot bodyguard who is grumpy and secretly loves baking who kind of dislikes Piper on sight. But only for a little while. And he's never, like, mean about it. Which I think is the best way to do a grumpy sunshine romance. There's a difference between gruff and mean.
I don't want to say too much, but there was so much about this book I enjoyed. I liked the emotional connection between Harrison, the bodyguard, and Piper. I liked that they went on relatable dates (Costco and a lake?). I liked that the author shows the incredible pressure teachers are under to be moral paragons of virtue, to the extent where sometimes even having a hobby can threaten their jobs. I liked the mental health representation and how it ran the gamut from anxiety to PTSD to borderline personality disorder. I also really liked the writing.
With some of Halle's books, I have felt that the pacing could be uneven and the heroine went on really long asides that took away from the story and ended up being really distracting. That was not the case with this book at all. It ended up feeling really clean and polished and perfectly paced, from start to finish, and cinematic and vivid as any film or movie. I don't know if that's due to her personal growth as a writer or a particularly good editing team, but either way it was impressive and added to my enjoyment.
If you love bodyguard romances and are a fan of Meghan and Harry, you will love this book. The ending is perfect, too.
Whenever a book gets this popular, I'm always kind of leery of starting it because I feel like it almost gets to a point where the book will never live up to the standards I've set for it in my mind. My toxic reader trait is that I build things up in my mind until they reach a point where nothing short of god can match them. But after weeks and weeks and weeks of being bombarded with it on Goodreads, TikTok, and Instagram, I finally decided to bite the bullet. I told everyone around me how much I wanted to read the book, and someone picked up the hint and got it for me for my birthday present.
I read it in literally two days.
This book is god.
God of keeping me up at night and forcing me to read about hot shadow men and dragons.
I chose not to perceive most of the reviews for this book because I didn't want to be spoiled, but I did glance at a few spoiler-free ones that were both positive and negative before asking for this book. FOURTH WING is a fantasy book but it's a fantasy book written by a romance author, and in an interview I saw with her on TikTok, she said she wanted to write a book for people who had trouble getting into fantasy. In that regard, I think it succeeds wildly. It was very, very easy to get into this book. Case in point: me finishing it in two days, on very little sleep.
FOURTH WING is basically a cross between Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern, Mercedes Lackey's Joust, DIVERGENT, HUNGER GAMES, and VAMPIRE ACADEMY. Because of this, it feels almost nostalgic, even though it's contemporaneous. The language of the book is very modern so it isn't like a lot of high fantasy books, which tend to use very ornate and convoluted language. It is very easy to read and is written kind of like a young adult book, almost (although I'd put the target age demographic as probably new adult). Which means that it's accessible for young readers, but because the characters are older and the content is actually pretty sexual, older readers can enjoy it too without feeling weird.
I don't want to spoil too much because it's better going in cold, but I actually really loved this book. It's compulsively readable, and even though the heroine is a bit of a Mary Sue (seriously, two-toned hair and, like, super special powers? she's basically the posterchild), I liked that the author gave her real struggles in the form of chronic pain/long-term disability and a very real sense of being out of her element and having to struggle to achieve physical feats when all of her strength lies in book-learning. This rounded her out as a character. It's also a very feminist story. Sometimes the heroine does break the fourth wall (fourth wing, fourth wall, get it?), and it can come off as cheesy, but her perspective serves as a nice counterpoint for the borderline villainous hero, who despite being a couple years older than her, is often put in his place by her, so the relationship doesn't come across as being unequal.
FOURTH WING also subverts a lot of other tired tropes. The heroine isn't a virgin and says several times that she enjoys sex. Her best friend is queer and has an on-page relationship and the author doesn't bury her gays. It's very casual and the heroine teases her about her relationship the same way she teases the straight characters. Also, even though this is a military academy where the students are basically supposed to Hunger Games each other to get control of dragons, none of the violence that Violet faces from her attackers is ever sexual. I don't personally mind that in a story about bullying where it's obviously toxic, but I know it bothers a lot of people, and it's notably absent here.
But the biggest selling point for me? DRAGONS. I am still a ten-year-old girl at heart, okay? If a book has dragons OR unicorns in it, I will come running. As soon as I found out that this was a romantic fantasy book about a girl who bonds with dragons and has an enemies-to-lovers relationship with a morally grey hero, I basically fell over myself adding it to my to-read pile.
On a closing note, I feel like in the book community, there can be an almost hipster mentality where a popular book is seen as "selling out" or "too commercial," and reviewers feel a lot of pressure to hate on it for clout, lest their intellectualism and credibility be called into question. I am not saying that all one-star reviewers all clout-chasers (and I have definitely been the odd one out when it comes to very popular books more times than I can count), but I do definitely see people who seem like they hate on these books precisely because they sell well and maybe aren't as safely literary as other tried-and-true choices in the book blogger canon. I think it's wrong to punish a book for being easy to read though, and I think it's even more wrong to mock or deride reviewers who actually enjoy these books. Is this Tolkien? No. But that's why I like it. Tolkien, to me, is like a chore. Reading books like that feels like an unpleasant mental exercise. This book is like eating an entire bag of potato chips. Addictive. Fun.
So if you have had trouble getting into the fantasy genre and you really enjoy romance novels, this might be the gateway drug that ends up sucking you in for good. I honestly felt so giddy after reading this, the way I did after reading THE HUNGER GAMES for the first time. It was so much fun to post status updates for this book and fangirl over it with other readers who also enjoy it, and to be a part of the hype for a popular book while it's popular, and be excited over the release of the sequel. (WHICH I TOTALLY ALREADY PREORDERED BY THE WAY.) I hope, if you pick this book up, that you feel the same way. Although if you don't like it, I'll also totally understand. (Sort of.)
Whoa. Was this the best thing I've ever read? No. But the story it told in under two hundred pages was *chef's kiss* brilliant. Finally, a contemporary enemies-to-lovers that actually sells the enmity and isn't just two petty under-caffeinated bitches whining about something trivial. Lexi gave testimony eleven years ago that sent the hero, Atlas, to jail. Now, freshly exonerated, he has come back to her and her family to seek his revenge. Which revolves, in a roundabout way, marriage. To her.
The sexual tension was great. The build-up was A+. The sex scenes were surprisingly kinky (I mean, for a Harlequin). I first got hooked on this author through her historical viking romance that had a master/slave relationship with semi-consensual sadomasochism and it was spicy. So you can imagine my surprise and delight when I found out that many of her other Harlequin offerings are rather loosely laced and feature about one or two more chili peppers than you can usually expect from this line.
What really made this book, though, was the back and forth between the h and the H. They both felt so betrayed and had tragic backstories that made them loath to trust one another. I thought that Lexi's worshipful childhood crush on the hero really shaped their relationship (in a good way), and I liked how even though the hero desperately wanted revenge, it didn't make him too cruel (I hate it when heroes are too mean to their ladies).
The only thing I would have changed is that the ending felt a little too anticlimactic. I was expecting a bigger showdown between the h/H and the villain. If he could have saved her, I felt like that would have really cemented himself as being the hero that Lexi always saw him as, as well as, you know, providing a redemption arc for his cruelty. But that didn't happen, and I was sad. Because this is a Harlequin and they do tend to be more bite-sized snacky than full course meal. Man, if this had been a full-length novel and just a little darker, it would have been a solid five-star. But this came really close.
Is this the most amazing thing I've ever read? No. But oh my God, it is so fun. Sophie Kinsella is a hit or miss author with me because she does this thing where she writes these heroines who are super passive aggressive and borderline pathological when it comes to lying, and it's supposed to be so omg!quirky and humorous, when actually, it just comes across as super toxic and kind of awful. REMEMBER ME? is one of the few books I've read by this author that doesn't do that, and I love it all the more for it.
When the book starts out, it's 2004. Lexi has a loser boyfriend named Loser Dave, she's struggling at an entry-level position in her company as an underpaid and underappreciated sales associate, and oh, yes, her father's funeral is tomorrow. But then she gets hit by a car when she's trying to hail a taxi and when she opens her eyes, everything has changed. She has dyed hair and veneers, all of her clothes are designer, and suddenly she's the director of her whole department. WHAT.
Also, it's 2007 and she can't remember any of it. Oop.
I'm a sucker for a good amnesia story and REMEMBER ME? delivers. The only thing that would make this story better would be if it had a bit of a gothic element to it. I kept hoping Eric was into some shady shit or something, but instead he's just a posh creep with some interesting sexual kinks (I may be traumatized forever by the phrase "Mont Blanc"). It was super interesting seeing Lexi navigate her new life and try to figure out why her sweet younger sister has become a borderline klepto, why all her old friends hate her and call her the "Cobra," and why she can't seem to stomach the sight of her supposedly beloved husband, Eric, who has oh-so-helpfully created a "marriage manual" for her that details everything from her dietary habits to step-by-step instructions for foreplay. LMAO.
Someone should seriously pick this up and make it into a TV mini-series. It's a very, very light mystery that's reminiscent of other cutesy amnesiac thrillers, like SIRI, WHO AM I? (which I also loved). The heroine is actually super likable and relatable and it's got a great ending. Also, the aughts references are EVERYTHING. Brangelina, cigarette jeans, and green juice. I think I actually read this book around the time that it first came out, so it was fun to revisit and experience the same thrilling rush. I'm doing this project called "the literary sad girl canon" where I reread books I loved (or hated!) when I was young. TWENTIES GIRL didn't quite live up to that first read but I'm happy to say this one does.
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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