Book Review: Murder, She Wrote: Design by Murder by Jessica Fletcher

Design For Murder by Jessica Fletcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Once again, Jessica Fletcher solves a murder, this time with a murder dealing with two models during NYC Fashion Week.

I enjoyed this book, but what took me out of it was the detective, Aaron Kopecky, coming around every time she wanted to do something. It irritated me, like he wanted her to be his new wife because he talks about her ALL THE TIME. It got on my last nerve, and I wanted to scream, because bruh, I wanted him to focus on his job, not on her. I felt like he showed up and wanted to be around Jessica, not giving her any room to breathe or to do anything, but in a Jessica way, he does back off and he gets that she's not interested in him right now.

But the mystery felt...boring, in my opinion. Two models died--one was seventeen, another twenty-something, and they were and weren't weirdly connected. One died from a poisonous lipstick while another was killed in her apartment by someone named Jordon Verne. I kept trying to figure out what was going on in the story, to see if I could figure it out...But I thought that the doctor did it, but when this Jordon Verse confessed after being in a room with both Jessica and Sandy Black, then I just felt...disappointed.

I wanted it to be a bit...better, in my opinion. But all it did was make me a bit sad and a little bit excited for it, and I did enjoy myself reading this book because this was all I really wanted to read once I was done with Shield of Sparrows. But because of the stalking Detective and the clues that kinda went nowhere, I'm giving this book a 4.75 stars.

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Book Review: Ever After High: A Semi-Charming Kind of Life by Suzanne Selfors

A Semi-Charming Kind of Life by Suzanne Selfors
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book made me so angry and also so so happy at the same time as I finished it last night. I felt so sorry for Darling Charming because she doesn't want to be a damsel in distress-she wants to be a warrior princess like her favorite characters she secretly reads, like Maid Marian, Athena, and people like that. She's getting bored with her Damsel-in-distress classes and is always helping her brother, Dexter, in Hero-in-Training classes.

One day, Dexter gets sick and Darling decides that she wants to help him...by taking his armor and pretending to be Dexter. The more she did it while Dex was in bed, getting over a princely cold, that's when she realizes two things: since Parent's Weekend is coming up, King and Queen Charming would want to see their sons joust and Darling walking like a princess in the parade, even though that's not what she wanted to do.

It nearly tore her apart that she couldn't be what she wanted to be, or the fact that her parents couldn't accept her for what she really wanna be, but somehow, she tries to keep her secret and her secret yearning of being a knight or a warrior princess secret from her parents by secretly helping Dexter while he's sick.

This book made me so mad for Darling, mostly because her parents want her to be one thing, while she wants to be another thing. It's like they're putting her in a box, and all she wants to do is get out of said box and be who she really wants to be. Damsel in Distress classes are boring AF she longs to hold a sword and read books about princesses fighting and saving themselves. I was close to putting this book as a three-star or even a two-star because of the parents, but I gave it a 4.25 stars because of how good it was, and how Darling kept helping Dexter.

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Book Review: The School for Wicked Witches by Will Taylor

The School for Wicked Witches by Will Taylor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A book about a school for witches that is set in Oz?

Sold.

I was locked in.

But sadly it fell flat for me in so many ways.

I did like the magic in the book-it was cute and fun and I wanted more. The schools that Ava went to sounded like a fun place I would teach in. But the whole escaping from one school to get to another, and then meeting a very wicked witch who went to the same wicked school who wanted to see them again after they made a deal with her, to a boy who has bone fire magic who can glow like he's ghost rider...

I was expecting more from this book, even though it is a middle grade, but it felt like it was lacking something and I couldn't put my finger on it. Maybe if I read the second one it'll be better and much more fun, because now she wants to leave the WOW school and go back to the other school, which in my mind doesn't make any sense, but the more I think about it, it might just make sense after all.

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Book Review: Payback's A Witch by Lana Harper (The Witches of Thistle Grove #1)

Payback's a Witch by Lana Harper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this book twice-once in the fall, the second time during April, and I loved it so much. It had ghost possession, a magical competition, a woman coming back home after years of being in another magicless town...it was so perfect that I immediately put all of them on my tbr to get to this year because of how good it was. The fall vibes in the book were total perfection and I loved every bit of it, even the romance.

Emmy Harlow has just come back to the town of Thistle Grove after being gone for so long, and she is back to become the Arbiter of the magical games Thistle Grove has every year, she left because of her relationship with one Gareth Blackmoore that left her feeling so upset. When she does come back, she does feel her magic returning after years of it not returning after so long, and she finds out that her best friend and fellow witch Natalia Avramov has also been scorned by this Gareth Blackmoore that they decide to team up and destroy him during the annual games.

What Emmy didn't count on was the fact that she was falling hard for Talia (which I loved) and she didn't want the Blackwoods to win this year, so as Arbiter, she does try and make sure the teaming up of Talia and Rowan help bring down the Blackmoores, and she also spends time in her small town and sees how it changed after she left. But that twist at the end of the book was SO GOOD, have Emmy compete after what happened in the last trial, which I loved very much, and how she knew pretty much everything to help the Avramovs win the trials and knock off the Blackmoores.

I also loved how Emmy talked down to Igraine, who needed to sit her old behind down.

The ball at the end and how Taila gave the wreath to Emmy was so on point for her that I was smiling at the end. I now wanna read the rest of the series because of how good the first book was and how the author incorporated magic and romance in this small town I really don't wanna leave. I want to be a permanent member of this town because it was SO GOOD.

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Book Review: Throne of Secrets by Kerri Mansicalco (Prince of Sin #2)

Throne of Secrets by Kerri Maniscalco
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Alright, Prince Gluttony/Gabriel Axton, you are also one of my favorites.

Even though I was entirely focused on the ice dragons and why they would be attacking people all over the place and all that, I still enjoyed this book so much. In the beginning, though, Gabriel made me mad for what happened to Wrath (my mans didn't deserve it okay, he came back looking like he got into a fight with Flordia Man and lost), and he still does needs to pay his healing/hospital bills, but I DIGRESS. Before I get into an angry match with him, he still goes into my good graces.

So this one did have enemies to lovers, like spot-on fighting in the scandal papers, but when Gabriel decides that he wants to change Miss Adriana from a reporter to a romance columnist like Lady Whistledown, boy was Adriana pissed. But she did it anyway, and she started going to a club called the Seven Sins club to have a very lovely tryst with a mysterious stranger...who just so happens to be Gabriel himself...who announced that he was looking for a wife, so he was holding a Bachelor like competition to see who can become his princess.

I have since realized that I don't like Bachelor-like competition trials because I don't watch the show and it's very stupid, but somehow I enjoyed this one better than I did, and I now may want to read more books with this in it without me actually watching the show.

So how does the ice dragon situation fit in?

Well, the ice dragons are all acting very weird and we don't know why. One day they were cool with the hunts and they didn't hurt people. Minutes later they tweakin' and now they're attacking people left right and sideways and Gluttony doesn't even know why...but it turns out Adriana does, and it was because of a hexed object called the golden pen I believe, that started to make the ice dragons tweak as if they were on Monster Hunter, and once the pen was destroyed, the ice dragons were back to normal. For me, that was the meat of the story, because I started to wonder what happened to the ice dragons and why they were tweakin' like that.

All in all, a really good book but the Bachelor competition took me away from it, kind of. But I still enjoyed it, though!

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Book Review: Throne of the Fallen by Kerri Maniscalco (Prince of Sin #1)

Throne of the Fallen by Kerri Maniscalco
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

SIX. BLOODY. STARS.

Six stars. I LOVED this book so much that I'm glad that someone recommended this book to me. Originally, I didn't like Envy in KOTW, but in this book? Oh, I fell in love with him. Mans had be BARKING for all the right reasons. I love villains, I have no idea why, but Envy in my opinion was the best villain in the way he did things and tried to keep his eyes on the prize, and he did...but he also didn't expect to fall in love, which is a good thing.

Miss Camilla Antonius was the best partner for Envy. She kept him on his toes and kept him with the clues, not even knowing that those clues were tying to her and the Wild Court, a court she came from, but she left after her mother kidnapped her and put her in the world of Waverly Green. She grew up trying to get away from a man named Lord Vexley, who got her to make a forgery of a painting and also try to get her to be his, only she kept rejecting him. Well Lord Vexley is a vampire now, so it's gonna be fun to see him slake his thirst while screwing his way through his afterlife. And Camilla's real daddy....I didn't like him one bit. I really didn't. I wished he was dead the moment he appeared on the page.

The romance was top-tier, the action was really good, and the spice was spicin'. I loved every single minute of it and I now want more of this world.

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Fireborne by Rosaria Munda (The Aurelian Cycle #1)

Fireborne by Rosaria Munda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book almost put me in a reading slump many times (and I don't like starting book reviews off like this) but I feel like it needs to be said. And then on top of that, I loved it so much that I want to finish reading the series because I fell in love with the world and how it has the political intrigue I wanted, the dragons were there, and also I wanted to know what happened next when it comes to this book series.

Lee and Annie have to be my favorite characters while I was reading this book. Yes, they're friends who are training together and finding their place in the world so they can be firstrider, and they are also kind of apart when it comes to their own personal demons. But at the same time, you see them grow into the young people that they are today. Lee was fighting who he was when he kept getting messages from his long lost cousin, Julia Stormscourge, who ran to another island to get strong and become the first firstrider of her dragon squad, and she and Lee saw each other one more time so they can talk about it, but when they did meet, Julia did tell him that her dragon can spark dragonfire, which shocked Lee, and that's when he went down some weird depression somewhat (this was when I felt like I was going through a slump) but the more I see Lee snap out of it when he became commander of the fleet and them facing Julia one more time for Arelius...it was actually a really good character arc, I really enjoyed it.

Annie...Annie was fighting for her place as Firstrider. She trains for her matches with a kid named Power, they go to the villages where she got triggered when she remembered what happened to her when it came to what happened to her village and what happened at her home that terrible day she was forced to watch her family die by dragonsfire. But then she got stronger and in her match with Lee, she actually beat him after Aela, her dragon, finally sparked dragonfire, along with Lee's dragon.

All in all this was a really good book, even though it did put me into a tiny slump and I really don't like opening book reviews like that, but it was the truth.

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