Book Review: An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My second Margaret Rogerson book that I've read, and it was soo good.

Isobel is a painter, and most of her patrons are Fae, and they come to get their paintings done. One day, the Autumn Prince Rook comes and asks for a painting, and she accidentally paints him to have human sorrow in his eyes, the deadliest thing she could've done. Then Rook comes back to spirit her away to the Autumn Court, to stand on trial for what she did. But once she was spirited back to the Fae realm, that's when she went on an adventure.

From the Wild Hunt to the Spring Court, and even attempting to fight the Alder King, Isobel and Rook find adventure, games, and romance. Isobel tries very hard to keep her human self intact, even keeping an iron ring in her pocket in case of emergencies. But the more she is around the fae and sees how they live in the respective courts, and also encounters the Wild Hunt and helps Rook defeat the Alder King, and also becomes royalty at the end.

I had a great deal of fun reading this book. It had twists and turns, and I wasn't expecting the adventure that I was going to go on with Rook and Isobel. I wish this were a series, because it was so, so good. I really enjoyed myself reading her stories, and I need to read more of Margaret Rogerson so, so much.

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Book Review: Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman (Practical Magic #1)

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I feel like everyone and their mama has read this book or any book by Alice Hoffman, but as soon as I picked this book up-randomly after I got done with another book-I cracked it open and I fell into this dark world filled with magic, secrets, history, and family. Alice Hoffman has just become one of my new favorite authors that I'm sleeping on, and reading this book in the fall seems perfect. It makes me want to actually make my own tea and make black soap and just have a cozy, magical life and not have any worries. That's how this book makes me feel.

My favorite character from this book has to be Maria. When Hannah raised her and taught her the Nameless Arts, she was a headstrong young lady and also very sweet and very kind. She knew how to do many things, and when Hannah was killed, she ran off so she wouldn't be found. She went to work on a Dutch farm, where she met the man who would make her do the family curse. She fell in love hard with John Hawthrone, and when she woke up one day and he was gone, she followed him, pregnant and only had her art, to Massachusetts, where she first had the baby before she left and then met a man named Samuel Dias, who had the breakback fever.

I don't think that at the time Maria was running away after Hannah's death, she'd come across her own mother, Rebecca, who was a witch as well, but she practices the Arts, but I think a bit darker. Maria did live with her mother for a bit and even learned of a potion called the Tenth Potion, which Maria wrote down, but she never used it. I would like to think that she kept that potion handy for an emergency, but she didn't use it because it reminded her too much of her mother and how her mother used it to get a man she loved, and that she had bespelled him to love her.

Back on the boat, Maria helped Samuel break his fever, but he still had aches and pains sometimes when it came back. Maria's daughter, Faith (we'll get back to her,) calls him either Gogo or Goat, and Samuel just kept telling both of them tales. He even warns Maria against going to Massachusetts to find the man she's in love with, John Hawthorne, because it is very dangerous.

And he was absolutely right.

This was Salem during the Witch Trials, and Maria and Faith, thanks to John, were hidden. But that didn't stop John from coming to see Maria at night and smashing her before going back to his wife, and Maria had to hide herself, but only wearing red boots. Faith kinda did the same, but she had a huge wolf she named Keeper after one night coming across him when she saw some hunters hurt his mother and brother, and forgot about him. Things were going well--women coming to see Maria for the usual remedies that the local apothecary doesn't have --until someone named Martha Chase lied on Maria, just so she could have her daughter Faith.

In fact, Martha did all of that scheming to take Faith away from Maria so she could have a daughter, telling her lies about her mother and making sure that she doesn't practice the art-to the point that she put iron bracelets on poor Faith's wrists, while Maria survives her ordeal, and during her trial and thanks to Samuel coming back from the sea, Maria put a curse on her family so she won't be hurt. When she didn't die and the rope snapped, Maria ran off to try and find her daughter, only to find her gone.

But Faith, being Faith, the smartest girl in the world, was coming up with a plan to escape Martha so she could finally live her life and get her revenge.

Faith has been playing the good daughter for Martha, but has been secretly buying books to read and even finding a dark magic spellbook from a book stall one day, even after she was warned about it. When she did escape from Martha, she did had help from the peddler named Finny, who was the hero of the escape, which was a really good thing. I was worried that Faith wasn't going to escape, and when she did after Martha fell hard on a bridge, that's when she felt truly free. She even asked Finny to take the bracelets off, and she felt more like herself again--to the point that when she got to Manhattan of NYC, she went straight to her mother and also started to get her revenge on her own father.

How?

She pretended to be a new maid in his home, and waited till the right time to do it. When she served him Tell the Truth Tea and some pie with a dead dove in it, she did feel like she got her revenge on her father after what he did to her and Maria, but once she came to her senses, that's when she (or I think Maria did) put the book in the Owens library so no one can find it and use its dark magic.

I really enjoyed this book so much, it has to be one of my favorite books. Now on to the next book!

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Book Review: Brewed with Love by Shelly Page

Brewed with Love by Shelly Page
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

How can I describe this book....

If you take the cozy mystery elements of a cozy mystery...

Throw in witches and werewolves...

A sapphic romance between said witch and werewolf...

A potion goes wrong, and small town vibes...

And you got this book.

Honestly, this book was really cute. It was cozy, had a mystery in it, and I enjoyed reading this book. It had a young witch who was trying to come up with a heartbreak potion to get rid of the heartbreak she felt for her friend Ximena. One day, Sage (the witch) ran out of the store, and there was a break-in at the store, thanks to Ximena calling her and telling her about it. Running back to the store, she found that her heartbreak potion was gone, and now she needs to know who broke into the store and why.

Throughout the book, we see Sage and Ximena try to solve the case in a couple of days, along with them trying to talk about why Ximena left and also their feelings for each other. When Sage finds out that Ximena is a werewolf and cannot control it because of the magic that has been leeched because of Bottled Wonders, a huge superstore like Walmart, but they sell a whole bunch of generic potions, and the owner, John Winters, is trying to run out every single small business in town.

Not if Sage has anything to deal with it.

Along with a human whose memory is lost, Sage and Ximena race to find out who stole the horrible potion and why. When they find out it was an athlete from school who was giving the potions to John Winters, Sage comes up with an idea to stop him, and it works. John is arrested, Sage came up with a new potion that helped revive the memories of the girl, and Ximena asks her to be her girlfriend. Everything is going well, and the shop is saved.

Even though all of this happened in the springtime, I feel like you can read this in the falltime and it can still be cozy and adorable at the same time. I enjoyed myself and I hope she comes out with more books or make this into a series, because I would read that.

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Book Review: Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig (The Shepard King's Duology #2)

Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Two Twisted Crowns...just like One Dark Window, Two Twisted Crowns had brought me to my knees. The Nightmare now inhabiting Elspeth's body, Elm, and Ione are looking for Ione's Maiden card, and both The Nightmare/Elspeth and Ravyn are looking for the last card in the Provience deck, the Twin Alders card. Once again, Rachel Gillig knocked this book out of the park for me, because we go back to a time when The Nightmare, or the Shepherd King, or Taxus, as he was called in the past, created the cards and how one person took it all away-a Rowan named Brutus, I believe-and then everything went to hell, and now The Nightmare and Ravyn are trying to find the Twin Alders to reunite the deck and then destroy it.

That arc hurt my soul in ways I never thought it could hurt me, but the more I read it, the more I was really getting into the story and how that arc was going to end-will Elspeth get back to her own body? Will The Nightmare forever stay in Elspeth's body, and will Elspeth be lost to Ravyn and everyone and never return? Those were the questions in my mind as I kept reading, and when they finally got the card, I felt like everything was going to be alright.

The second arc was the Elm and Ione story. All Elm wants to do is help Ione find the Maiden card that Hauth, when he controlled her with the Scythe card, told her to hide it. Elm tried everything he could to find the card, along with being the King's Heir, while the King was totally doing the Robert Baratheon and drinking all the time, and not making any sense when he was drunk. When Hauth came back to life thanks to the Maiden card, it was almost like a fight to the death when Elm and Ione tried to fight Hauth, and even Ione showed Elm the cruelty she dealt with her when she was with Hauth.

When the Nightmare and Ravyn came back from getting the Twin Alders, a fight ensued, and all hope was lost when Hauth had all the cards. But Elm pulled an uno-reverse card and spilled Hauth's blood all over the cards, and everything was clearer than ever-The Nightmare and Elspeth had one final moment before he disappeared, Ravyn knew his real name (Taxus, named after The Shepherd King and also his father was Bennett), and Elm and Ione got married. Some new cards were created, and the wedding between Elm and Ione was very beautiful. I really enjoyed this duology, and I'm so glad that I read it, and I now need to read the new things Rachel Gillig is writing, because she's my new favorite author of all time.

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Book Review: One Dark Window (The Shepard King Duology #1) by Rachel Gillig

One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So....apparently I've been missing out on Rachel Gillig, because OH MY GOOD LORD this book??? This book right here?? PERFECTION. I wasn't expecting me to love this book, to be fair. Every time I'd see this book online, I would legit ask, 'Does the monster in this girl's head like Sukuna in Itadori's head?' and I was so curious that I'd hold on to this series until the fall, where I picked it up and read it myself.

And I am so glad that I did.

Elspeth Spindle is a girl who has a being called the Nightmare in her head (that sadly isn't like Sukuna, but then the more I read it, his voice turned out to be like Naraku, but his actions are like Sukuna's), and one night while walking, she almost gets attacked by highwaymen. It turns out that the highwaymen are from the Rowan royal family, who are seeking the cards to rid themselves of the mist that has shrouded the Kingdom of Bluster. Elspeth agrees when her cousin Ione is announced to the Crown Prince Hauth (whom I hate, but let's move on before I snap and dump a BUNCH of hate on this man) and has received The Maiden card.

Elspeth, Ravyn, Elm, and Jespyr go out one night and attempt to rob someone of their card, unaware that Hauth or Elspeth's father is also present, and things don't go as planned. Back at the castle, the sickly brother, Emory, touches Elspeth, and I feel like he kinda saw The Nightmare in Elspeth, and started talking about The Book of the Oak, I believe, and then things started...going dark quite fast.

There was a Chalice card that tries to get people to tell the truth, and Prince Hauth tries to use it on Elspeth, but since she can see it and can't use it (along with Ravyn) that's when Ravyn starts to lie about certain events, and then after that, Ravyn and Elspeth told each other their feelings, and then they hunched. But one day, when Ravyn was gone from the castle, Hauth showed up and put his hands on Elspeth, and then The Nightmare took over and broke Hauth like a twig, and that's where the story ends-with The Nightmare/Elspeth in the dungeons, Ione very beautiful, and Hauth darn near on his deathbed.

I really enjoyed this book, like I said, and Rachel Gillig became one of my new auto-buy authors. I loved her writing, I loved how she brought the magic in the cards to life, and I also really like how she built the relationship between the characters to bring them to life. I feel like I was at home in the Kingdom of Blunder, and I am very excited to read the second book in the series.

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Book Review: Queen of Deception (Empire of Shattered Crowns #1) by May Freighter

Queen of Deception by May Freighter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book reminded me of the many Korean reincarnation manhwas I've read, about a girl who's reincarnated into a princess and starts to change everything, and I loved every single bit of it.

Emilia was dead, and then one day she woke up in a fantasy novel like the one in her favorite fantasy novel, The Cruel Empire, and the person she inhabits is the princess who is fated to die. But Emilia changes all of that when she survives the coup and becomes regent of Dante. She then starts to go to work on fixing so many things that needed to be fixed in the country, and also works with the prince, Prince Thessian, and to one day give him the Throne of Dante, and she can live on her own in the countryside with her faithful maid and lady in waiting, Ambrose.

But things don't go her way the moment she learns that things aren't going the way they should in Dante.

One, there were political enemies she wanted to eliminate, one by one. The way she did this was so well done and very cunningly, I must say. Two, she tried very hard not to fall in love with Prince Thessian, and she succeeded, even though she couldn't help but look at him from time to time, which is not that much. Thirdly, she saves a group of children from people who don't want her to take the throne, and she willingly walks towards them before they are killed.

Emilia became one of my favorite characters of all time now, and I want to read more of this series. Even though Prince Thessian wasn't my favorite, the ending concerned me a bit, and I wanted to know if he was going to survive or not. The way he ran after the Grey Wolf with one of the lord's children, and I got very concerned about him. All in all, I really liked this book and I will definitely read more in this series, to see how it continues.

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Book Review: A Kingdom of Stars and Shadows by Holly Renee (Stars & Shadows #1)

A Kingdom of Stars and Shadows by Holly Renee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I legit read this book out of spite, and even though it was fine, for me it fell...flat. As hell.

Adara was just...annoying and always was the strong girl who wanted to be free of being Starblessed like she had cooties and wanted to live a normal life. Adara was betrothed to the crown prince, Garvil, but then she meets Evran one night...and she's lusting after him, not giving Garvil the time of day. At all. Which, okay, cool, its forbidden and all, but to sneak around and smash the brother while trying to find a way out ofthe castle.

The spicy scenes were eh okay, the way she left the castle when the vampyres attacked were meh, and then that ending...didn't surprise me one bit. I was waiting on something else to come along and shock me, but it didn't. This book just fell so flat for me that I wished for it to be over. When it was, it was. It was an okay book but sadly just not for me at all.

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