Book Review: For the Love of Mike: A Molly Murphy Mystery by Rhys Bowen

For the Love of Mike by Rhys Bowen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For the Love of Mike was actually a really good book. I went in with worry and low expectation, but then as I read, it was actually quite delightful. I loved every bit of the book. I was prepared for the women’s suffrage movement, when Molly went to work for Mostel’s, then Lowenstein to find out who has been stealing Mr. Mostel’s designs, and also working another case to find where Katherine was, along with a man named Michael Kelly.

There is also a bit of a love triangle in the book between Molly, Jacob and Daniel. I felt like Daniel was trying to get Molly to fall in love with him and demand to be with him, but she stood her ground, which I liked SO MUCH, and kept bringing up his fiancee. And when Molly started hanging out with Jacob, OH NO, Daniel didn’t like that. He kept trying to get Molly to see that she didn’t love Jacob, and she loved Daniel. But once again, I find that I really like Molly, said, very nicely, hell to tha nah, I’m not gonna fall in love with you, not gonna be with you, and if I want to be with Jacob and marry him, then I’ll marry him while you’re with your fiancee.

With the case of someone stealing Mr. Mostel’s designs, I actually enjoyed this one. You get to read about Molly working in TERRIBLE conditions (like really fucking terrible) and then Seedy Sam barking out all types of stuff and even turning the clock forward a bit just to tell them that they’re late and all that, WHICH IS BULLSHIT. And then she went to Lowenstein’s, where it’s much worse??? And she almost got raped by the disgusting forman (who’s name I don’t give a flying fuck to remember) and thank god for her friend to stay over and catch him before he did anything else.

Then Molly joined a women’s union group and did a walkout and stood in front of Lowenstein’s sweatshop, demanding rights as they should, along with better pay and getting off early for Shabbat, and there was a bit of a ruffle outside of Lowensteins-turns out, it was some hired people who were trying to get the women to go back in and do their work, and well…it didn’t work, because Molly got into a fight with them, giving them what they wanted, and spent a night in jail..woof. Jacob got her out, and the two had dinner with his mother and father, who don’t speak English, but it was okay.

Then when the women won and got their demands and went back to work. Molly, though fired, went back to Mostel’s and worked there a little bit more, only to discover that the conditions was worse, and that the woman she was looking for was hiding in the basement of the shop. Then the sweatshop got caught on fire, thanks to the jackass that decided to lock them up when they were about to walk out and the poor, scared girl knocked over one of the stoves. Bravely, with Katherine’s help, the women escaped the burning building, and Molly found out it was one of the women that worked there stealing the designs of Mr. Mostel.

After she told Mr. Mostel who did it and was paid one hundred dollars for her work, she went back to her new apartment to find a note by Michael Kelly, telling her to come alone because he kidnapped Bridie. She was about to head out and go, but the Katherine stopped her and the two went alone to face Michael. When they got to where Michael wanted to meet up with Molly, Birdie was on a very unsturdy catwalk. The three of them got into a tussle and the police showed up and saved them by shooting Michael.

At the end, Molly almost made money, she shut down Daniel YET AGAIN, and she and Jacob became friends. All good for a lady investigator! And it was a really good book that surprised me.

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Book Review: Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard

Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book felt like a really old 80s action movie, starring Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Segal, or like the Expendables, but you add in the Game of Thrones bit and the powers, then that’s Glass Sword. I felt like in this book Mare was Sylvester’s character Barney in the Expendables 3, trying to come up with a team to take down Maven (in which I was curse him out at the end of this review). She does have Cal, and yes, she does get with him, but at the end it didn’t end well with them. Surprisingly, this time in this book we have Shade, Mare’s brother, but she kinda…I wanna say treat him like crap before he was killed, but at least she treated him like a brother at the end.

What Maven did at Chapter Nineteen pissed me off to high heaven for MANY reasons. One of them was that after what he did, he kept leaving messages for her to find, which I found very creepy (but at the same time, kinda gave me ideas for no good reason) and then as they try and find people to recruit, they didn’t find much because of Maven. Then they went to break into a jail, and, well.. THAT didn’t end well, for many reasons why.

One, because every single Silver that was guarding the place was dying and yet when it came to Queen Elara, I had a feeling she was sneaking around the place, waiting for Mare to show up. And when the two of them faced off and she died in that malestorm, I thought it was a sucky ending for her. I actually wanted her alive at least till the next book, and then she dies. But it was pretty gruesome to keep her dead body around and show all of Norta that she’s dead and that Maven is a big fat liar (which he is, BTW.)

As for Maven, he wasn’t really in this book. His presence was there, but it was like he just wasn’t gonna deal with Mare’s shit and went to pretend he was king and all that. But he just pissed me off for SO MANY REASONS, even for what he did in Chapter Nineteen, doing that poor person like that. Just to get at Mare, and the clicking, switching thing he got to make sure she doesn't really leave his presence, which sucks, TBH. AND HE’S STILL A JUMPED UP LITTLE SHIT AND I HOPE SOMETHING REALLY BAD HAPPENS TO HIM, HE DOESN’T GET THAT JOB, HE DOESN’T GET ANYMORE PROMOTIONS, I HOPE HE GETS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BECAUSE IT WILL POSSIBLY GET WORSE FOR HIM.

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Book Review: The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book isn’t that funny, TBH. I hate starting out a book review like this, but it’s the truth. The only time it made me wheeze laugh was when they brought up Cub Foods, and that was my childhood store that me, my mama, and my grandmama went into every single friday. Now yes, the free trip to Maui was cool and amazing, but to lie to your boss when you meet him that you’re married to your worst enemy, to me, is wrong. Then the whole ending kinda threw me off when they did the whole ‘my sister’s husband flirted with me, and oh we found out that he’s a massive serial cheater and had cheated on his wife with three women’ and then Olive’s life turning upside down-from getting fired to breaking up with Ethan…it was a whole-ass mess. I was so close to DNFing this book because of how chaotic it was, but there was some good parts to it…the Cub Foods mention was the only thing that made me laugh real hard. The rest…the rest was just one weird ride that was just otay.

First off, we meet a young woman named Olive who’s twin sister is getting married, and she has to deal with all the wedding shit that goes with a wedding. During the reception, erryone gets sick with some stomach flu, and that leaves Olive going on a honeymoon…with none other than the man she hates more than life itself, more than me hating Dio and Maven with a passion…Ethan Thomas. The man basically has a weird phobia with buffets and hates Olive’s guts.

First off, he fat-shames her, which is a huge-ass YIKES in my book. Then they have to act married when they get there, and then they spend half the vacation spending time with Sophie, his ex, and her fiance, Billy (the assistant manager of Cub Foods…DAMMIT), and then they meet up with Olive’s boss and his wife for dinner.

Then the one sex scene was just eh, okay. Kinda wanted more, but it happened close to the end, and when the went back to the real world, that’s when Olive lost her dream job with her dream business, Dane hit on her, and when she told Ethan he didn’t believe her, so they broke up, then she told Ami about Dane, and then the sister didn’t believe her.

Uh…okay…I thought this book was about enemies to lovers, the thing booktok likes??? Where the hell did all this hate and animosity come from, all because Olive told the truth about the sister’s husband? All in all, this book confused the hell out of me and I did like it, but I wish it was less confusing, more funny, and more enemies to my liking before they become lovers. This is otay, like I said, nothing to run home and tell mama about, tbh.

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Book Review: Murder at Marble House by Alyssa Maxwell

Murder at Marble House by Alyssa Maxwell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This mystery (can we call this a mystery?) is set in the Gilded Age, during the days of Alva and Consuelo Vanderbilt, and reading about this from a fictional standpoint was okay-nothing to run home and tell mama about. This was a murder and a go willingly kidnapping all together, and honestly, it confused the hell out of me for some reason. I felt like this book would’ve been much better if Emma Cross focused on just one thing instead of just two things and connecting to it and trying to figure it out. Also her and her love interest just somehow click but at the same time it kinda works??

So basically Emma got a phone call from her cousin Consuelo, who was being frantic. So Emma goes over and it turns out Consuelo really don’t want to marry the Duke of Marlborough (which, when I did my research, she did),and her aunt Alva was locking her up in her room, keeping her in the house until she did (which, in my opinion, was bullshit). So Aunt Alva somehow convinced Emma to talk to Consuelo into marrying the Duke, but Emma did the opposite, telling Consuelo to live her life the best way she knows how. Consuelo agreed and the two went downstairs, where they meet a tarot card reader named Madame Deveraux.

Taking Consuelo’s hand, Madame Deveraux tells her something very ominous about her future, about not going to be with that man. Aunt Alva thought she was talking about the Duke, so before everyone went outside and have a reading done by her, Emma overhears Aunt Alva threatening Madame Deveraux to expose her if she tells Consuelo to marry the Duke (this is why I hate mothers in books sometimes-they pull shit like this) and once she goes outside and have a nice chat with the ladies-Mrs. Stanford and Miss Beaumont-there was a scream, and everyone came to see Madame Deveraux dead.

Of course, Aunt Alva assumes that her maid did it, but in reality, it was the fake gardener Consuelo…fell in love with, I guess, after not giving Winston Rutherfurd or “Winty” a second chance?? And the whole kidnapping thing was so unnecessary that I just rolled my eyes a bit and wished it wasn’t in the book. It was an okay book, like I said. There is some mygsongy when it came to Emma and her trying to get her name in the paper, and after what felt like a long time, she got it, but it was on the third page instead of the front page. But at the end, it was good, Consuelo married the Duke, Emma found out that the love interest, Derrick, has moved in her childhood home that she really wanted to buy for herself, and that’s about it.

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Book Review: Night Embrace by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Night Embrace by Sherrilyn Kenyon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Teenage me is very happy to get nearly all of the Dark Hunter novels and read them all…but when I checked to see if I reviewed this one…turns out I didn’t. So let’s get started with the review…with a bit of a complaint.

The complaint is…

Talon of the Morrigantes, Spierr of the Morrigantes, my boy…I FEEL SO SORRY FOR YOU BECAUSE SUNSHINE DIDN’T FEED YOU SOME *ACTUAL* FOOD. No offense to the people who are vegan and what not, because I understand. But good lord, there has to be some Popeyes SOMEWHERE around your house or at least a couple miles so he can get some chicken or some Mickey Donalds or hell, some goddarned WENDYS so he can have his burger or some chicky nuggets or SOMETHING. Good lord. Maybe every once in a while you can go to Longhorn or Outback to get him a nice, juicy steak in here??? Please??? (okay, mini food rant over)

But as I was saying, Talon of the Morrigantes is a Dark Hunter…who got hit by a Mardi Gras float. Thanks to Sunshine Runningwolf, the woman that saved him, he’s okay…but he falls in love with her (and the spice? nice) but then he gets distracted when another ‘Acheron’ tells him to say with Sunshine, and he starts to talk all weird…when Talon knows his friend don’t act the way he used to, he realizes things aren’t going the way they’re supposed to…

That’s when things started to hit the fan.

Like the fact that his sister wasn’t around to warn him about that, Talon and Sunshine thinking that she’s his reincarnated wife Nynia (she is if she’s having flashbacks about him) and the fact that he punched her ex-husband while in Sanctuary while also accidentally exposing the Dark Hunters?? Y-yeah that…that happened…but hey, at least at the end Sunshine and Talon found out that Sunshine’s grandmama is the Morrigan and that both of them were under her protection after Talon bit and drank some of Sunshine’s blood while they were getting their swerve on on the grass, but then they had to stop Dionyous, Camulus and Ash’s brother, Styxx before they released Apollymi the Destroyer…only to stab Acheron in the heart and made him switch his humanity off, but Talon calmed him down, and he was back to normal.

Oh yeah, Zarek was in there, but it was like he was getting in trouble left right and was working with wink, blink, and nod, but then when Sunshine made the deal to give up her soul for Talon…it didn’t go well. There were screams and a bolt of lighting…sigh. But at the end, Talon and Sunshine did get their HEA, and now I’m worried about Zarek. And like Simi says…Artemis is a bitch-goddess…no seriously, she is.

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