Release Date: August 29th, 2023 Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (I only rated because I made it to 50% of the way through.) Review: DNF at 51%. Normally I would never DNF an advanced review title. I’m grateful to get to receive books ahead of time and I try to always get through the book even if I have my gripes with it but honestly, at halfway through I was just done with this book. I’ll admit I had not read ‘The Mask of the Red Death’ by Edgar Allen Poe before reading this and maybe that would’ve helped inform me better on what this book was supposed to be like. The main reason I struggled to get through thi ..read more

Rating: ★★★☆☆ Review: So l’ll admit to watching the anime film first before reading this. I honestly didn’t know that the film was based off of a book when I went to watch it and only found out after looking up more information. Unfortunately, I feel my experience with the film definitely colored my reading of the book. While I liked its whimsical elements and humorous moments, I felt the characters were a lot flatter in the book. I came expecting closer to what I experienced in the film, which of course is always a mistake when reading the source material. For me the characters of the film ..read more

Release Date: December 6th, 2022 Rating: ★★★★☆ Review: “They said the island grew roots around your feet so you couldn’t leave, even if you wanted to.” What can I say? Like the stunning cover and haunting songs of the Endla residents, this book draws you in. While I wouldn’t call it the most perfectly polished book or one that tied up every plot seamlessly, what this book did do right were its characters, pacing and atmosphere. It’s rare for me to like nearly all the characters in a book but even the villains in this story were worth the pages spent on them. Everyone had an interesting pers ..read more

Release Date: September 13, 2022 Rating: ★★★★☆ Review: “Someday I’d have to put my trust in something beyond my own power.” I decided to request this book for two reasons, the cover and because it seemed to be a Christian fantasy and I can’t pass those up. Anytime I see a Christian author attempting to delve into fantasy is makes me so excited because so few do it and succeed. But this author succeeds and can I say, what a stunner of a book she wrote. I would call this book a character journey above all else. It’s more character-focused than it is plot, world-building or even romance. All o ..read more

Release Date: October 5th, 2021 Rating: ★★★★☆ Review: “Could I be both dragon and human without betraying one or the other?“ I’ll admit, I picked this book up because it teased dragons and an enemies to lovers romance. Well, it delivered on both fronts, although not really in the way I’d expected for either. The plot revolving around dragons was new and fresh, making the dragons more fearsome, menacing and human-like than a lot of the glamorizing done in many books now. Not to say that there isn’t still some dragon appreciation going on, it’s simply less a part of the overall story. I liked ..read more

Release Date: July 20th, 2021 Rating: ★★★☆☆ Review: “Now the shadows seemed to be all she was. Just darkness lined with good intentions.“ Instead of continuing to focus on the journey of the Heirs from the last book, this book introduces the future Heirs, Klaus and Kaia’s children. This direction definitely attempts to expand the story as the reader isn’t confined to just Kaia and Klaus but now their children. However, where Kaia and Klaus really shone in the last book as far as development and being relatable, their children fell flatter for me. Aza takes center stage as the upcoming Shado ..read more

Rating: ★★★★★ Review: “But what did you do when your best wasn’t good enough?” This book reads like a fantasy movie put to pages. Between the depth of the world-building, intensity of the story and emotional pull of the characters, I was hooked from the start. This is a vibrant, incredible world the author has created, with such richness just begging to be explored. In ways I wish the book was lengthened at certain points because I want to know more about these places, the creatures, the magic and the atmosphere that lives inside this story. It almost would’ve been nice to stop Kaia’s journ ..read more

Release Date: April 6th, 2021 Rating: ★★★★☆ Review: “Maybe I was never supposed to have my own opinion. And now I’m being punished for it.” For me this book was a little mix of brilliant and frustrating. I’ve thought about this whole story a good deal and while it was frustrating that characterization and some of the world building fell short, with much of the focus going on the overarching theme, it was honestly, equally brilliant. The author wove everything together to create a narrative that perfectly reflects the idea “do our choices really matter”, which was pretty masterful. For me, t ..read more

Rating: ★★★★☆ Review: “Always hit where the mark isn’t looking.” “Who’s Mark?” Ok, so the hype may have been a little true about this book. While I didn’t agree with or like everything, there were some parts that stood out. Kaz’s struggling with his past, Inej’s fight for purpose, their moments together, Nina and Matthias’s journey to understand each other, the unexpected humor. All of it mixing to create a very well-crafted, thoroughly entertaining heist read. The thing I loved most though was undoubtedly the relationship between Kaz and Inej. The romance elements were subtle for sure but ..read more

Rating: ★★★☆☆ Review: I so wanted to like this book more than I did. Don’t get me wrong, I sped through it in a day and a half. It was entertaining but unfortunately not very memorable and somewhat confusing at times. The characters just didn’t resonate with me at all. The only one I had any interest in was Brannick and even he fell flat. There wasn’t much of him until near the end of the story and then his characterization was patchy at best. His speech changed between cultured and immature teenager which made it hard to see him as this swoonworthy fae prince. His tortured backstory, which w ..read more