Book Review: A Demon's Guide to Wooing a Witch (Glimmer Falls #2) by Sarah Hawley

A Demon's Guide to Wooing a Witch by Sarah Hawley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sarah Hawley, you beautiful human you.

I am loving this series, and I really don't want it to end. I want this series to keep going because of how good it is, and also how fun it was. I was scared of the amnesia trope, but when she did it for Astaroth of the Nine and how it worked perfectly with the story, I loved it to bits. I really didn't like Astaroth in the beginning of the series. Still, with the second book all on him and how he travels with Calladia Cunnington to figure out how to get his memories back, it was SUCH a fun time that I want to read some more before the series ends.

This book touches on subjects like abuse-mental abuse, thanks to Calladia's ex and her mother, telling her that she's not good enough, she needs to tone herself down, and things like that. It did urk my nerves when her mother brought up all of the things that were wrong with Calladia and not love who she is as a person, and I'm glad that in the end, Calladia got her lick back and isn't gonna be around her mother ever again.

Astaroth of the Nine changed my perception of him throughout the book.

He shocked me so many times--from learning that he was a half-demon, his mother is Lilith...who writes War of the Roses tentacle AO3 Fanfiction--something I wasn't really for or to learn about--but I found that I liked that about her--and that he needed to find a life witch to help him get his memories back. So teaming up with the witch that hated him so much, Calladia, he goes on a road trip to find the witch that can restore his memories, and also find a way to stop a demon named Moloch, who is currently hellbent on killing him.

Throughout the road trip, from fighting werewolves to falling in love and sleeping in a tent, Astaroth had slowly shocked me and Calladia to the point that they fell in love. The ending was really fun, and for secrets to come out when Astaroth got his memories back and realised that he didn't want to go back to the Demon Council, to represent the demon hybrids and be their speaker in the council. Instead, he wants to be with his warrior queen, whom he had fallen in love with.

...Though there were some things I really didn't need to know about, like him and Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia...didn't need to know that part....really didn't....

But I really do love this book series so much and I cannot wait to read the next one.

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Book Review: The Witching Moon Manor (The Spellbound Sisters #2) by Stacy Sivinski

The Witching Moon Manor by Stacy Sivinski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This month it seems like my Libby holds have gas after gas after gas-and reading The Witching Moon Manor made me really happy-just like the first book, it is a happy, warm hug while you sit and enjoy a cup of tea.

The Quigley sisters are reunited again after having their birthday visions and came home, each sister having problems-Anne is the Diviner of Chicago, but even she can't figure out why Mr. Crowley hasn't done his final Task. Violet had an accident at the circus with her husband, Emil, and decided to come home, and Beatrix...well, Beatrix can't write herself a new novel, and she's in a writer's block. So the three sisters come back together to figure things out like they always do, and just like magic, things start to unravel themselves and are put back to rights in their own ways.

Beatrix is having a problem writing her new book. She sits in front of her notebook, but no words have come to her. So she gets up and helps her sister, Anne, only to find herself in a bookstore where she becomes the sole owner thanks to Violet, and she opens a book and starts to read it, thinking that once she gets to the end, she'll see the words The End.

Instead, the words are scratched out, and new words are written...words I have forgotten, but I think they said "There are new endings' or something like that?

Once Beatrix reads those words and is also around Jennings and is slowly falling for him, it turns out that the dusty bookshelf is an enchanted bookstore, and then soon Beatrix is writing again.

Anne is trying to figure out how to keep Mr. Crowley and Philip together in the afterlife once she figures out what Final Task Mr. Crowley has been ignoring/didn't do. She meets his nephew, Vincent, and the two work together to figure out who the ring belongs to. They do butt heads during the whole thing, but then when they do come together, that's when she finds out that thanks to the ring and her new powers, she can walk through the past, and thanks to Vincent's help, she figures out who the ring belongs to, and even though it does belong to Vincent Crowley, it went from Mr. Crowley, Anne, May, Philip's sister, and then Vincent.

Violet was having problems with what had happened at the circus, and she threw herself into helping her sisters with their problems, ignoring her own. When she finally has a chance to sit down and think about what happened at the circus and to poor Emil, she talks to her sisters and drinks some tea, then goes to bed and has a dream that changes everything. Then, when they were together at the end, they all looked at the tea leaves....

...and finds out that someone is pregnant and is going to have a baby by the sign of the birds or something in the tea leaves.

This is my favorite series of all time and I need everyone reading this cozy series.

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Book Review: High Tea and Misdemeanor by Laura Childs

High Tea and Misdemeanors by Laura Childs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First time reading anything from Laura Childs, and I don't think it'll be my last time doing so. High Tea and Misdemeanors takes place during a wedding in Charleston, but then a murder happens, and Theo and her friend and tea sommelier (I learned that's a thing now....) Drayton Conneley tries to figure out who killed the bridesmaid and why they are trying to scare the groom.

As Theo and Drayton look into everything, from the guy Jaime worked for once, and told him that what he was doing wasn't going to work, and he lost everything, to a tech startup guy that did the website for the graveyard stroll that Theo's teashop, the Indigo Tea Shop, is hosting in a very famous graveyard. But when this one woman kept coming into the shop, saying that she wanted to open her own coffee shop with her own flavors of coffee, it never clicked until the end, when she led Theo and Drayton to an abandoned warehouse, where she explained everything and why she did what she did to the shed.

For a moment throughout the whole entire thing, I thought it was the bride's ex-fiancé that did it, but when it was revealed to be the coffee shop operator, I was both shocked...and annoyed. I really didn't want it to be her, but good lord, she made it so hard for me to see that it was her the whole time. I was hoping that it was someone else, but when Theo's boyfriend came through at the end, after telling her multiple times not to get involved, she did anyway.

Throughout the book, everyone kept asking her if she was going to get involved and solve the mystery. Even though Theo said no, she got involved anyway, and that's when she solved the case, while also going through the police via her boyfriend :) All in all, it was a really good book, and I cannot wait to read more from this author.

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Book Review: A Witch's Guide to Fake Dating a Demon by Sarah Hawley

A Witch's Guide to Fake Dating a Demon by Sarah Hawley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I saw someone on The Nest on OwlCrate read this book and decided to put this on hold...and I'm so glad that I did. This book was so good, so funny, and I wanna read the rest of the series, because how can something like this-a witch and demon-actually work? I thought it couldn't be done or that I had to do it, but when I first read this book and saw how funny it was, I loved every bit of it.

Mariel accidentally summons Ozroth the Ruthless...because she was trying to summon a bag of flour. Mariel tries so hard to get rid of Ozroth, only for him to be her fake boyfriend when her mother comes by to see how her summoning is doing. Since Ozroth is a soul bargainer demon, he tries so hard to get Mariel to sell her soul on some simple things, but she refuses at every turn.

Ozroth is having problems himself. Ozroth made a deal gone wrong, and now he has a soul inside him that is making him do human things, like sleep for eight hours, eat, and actually drink tea. But the more he's around Mariel and sees how good she is, and how her magic just shines, and how her family pretty much treats her like shit, Ozroth decides to help her with her magic and for her to understand it...only to fall in love with her...hard.

When his mentor, Astaroth, calls him, trying to get him to make Mariel take the deal, Orzoth tries...but instead, at the end, fails, and Mariel makes a deal with Astaroth instead without knowing it, losing her soul in the process....and made it go directly to Ozroth instead. As soon as Ozroth got the spell, that's when it clicked for him, and he returned her soul back, and then everything is well...

Or it?

Thanks to Mariel's bestie, she kicked Astaroth's ass back to the demon world....or did she?

Now I need to read book two to know what happened to him and how he'll survive.

This book was right up my alley, and I enjoyed every bit of it. It made me laugh, and I gasped at some parts. I now want to reread this series every single spooky season because of how good it is.

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Book Review: Murder by Chessecake: A Golden Girls Cozy Mystery by Rachel Ekstrom Courage

Murder by Cheesecake by Rachel Ekstrom Courage
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Murder during a St. Olaf Wedding that Rose is hosting? Perfection.

I flew through this book the moment it arrived on my Libby. It was really funny, had that old Golden Girls charm that we all know and love, and I crackled greatly at the many St. Olaf stories that Rose has told from the show, from Mean Old Lady Hickenlooper to the Headless Boy to everything in between. I thought-no, I feared. Greatly. That I wouldn't like this book. A Golden Girls Cozy Mystery? Nah, I wouldn't like it.

But the more I read it, the more I found that I really enjoyed myself. I wanted to read more of the Girls going throughgh everything they could to figure out why poor Dorothy's date had fallen dead on one of Rose's perfect cheesecakes. I felt like I was right there with them when they discovered it, and then going through the whole mystery of who killed the guy and what led to his death. From going to Wolfie's, dealing with Rose's family from St. Olaf that came to Miami for the wedding, to the funny ending, this was a book I really fun time and I really need everyone to read it.

In fact, I think it was this book that made me do my 30th rewatch of the Golden Girls because it was that funny, made me worry about the girls as they figure out who killed Dorothy's date, and also who put him in the freezer, face down onto Rose's cheesecakes.

I wanted to eat a cheesecake after reading this book. Alas...I didn't get a chance to. But one day I will.

Loved, loved, loved this book so much.

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Book Review: Hungerstone by Kat Dunn

Hungerstone by Kat Dunn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have never read Carmilla, but while I was reading this book, I now have an itch it read it. You don't need to read Carmilla to read this book, but oh boy, this book was sooo good and had me cheering for the end...and also something really bad to happen to Henry because I really hated him so, so much.

Throughout the novel, you are in Lenore's head and see what she goes through with her husband, Henry, and her so-called best friend Cora as she tries to get the Nethershaw Manor fixed up for a hunt that was going to happen in a couple of months. While going to Nethershaw Manor, they run into a broken carriage that belongs to a woman named Carmilla, and that's when things start to become as strange as they can be.

Men are dying, and women are starting to feel hunger for something. One day in the woods, they came across a girl who ate a whole-ass chicken and said that she was "just so hungry". Another time Lenore was out, they came across a woman in a shop, where the man was leaning over the table and moaning, his arm bleeding as the woman was cooking some pork, and said the same thing the girl said-she was "just so hungry".

But the worst thing that happened was the death of one of Henry's workers at Ajax Works--she, along with other Iron Magistrates, witnessed it, and when she thought Henry would do the right thing and give the family some compensation...it didn't happen. Instead, he didn't do it, telling Lenore to post it in the mail. But Lenore wanted to deliver it herself, and it ended up pretty bad.

My favorite parts throughout the book were the relationship Lenore had with Carmilla. It was the most beautiful, sapphic love, because Carmilla saw how Henry was treating her, and she wanted Lenore to stand up for herself, and to also fight and know what was really going on in her house. She even asked the question over breakfast or dinner, Do you think those two are fucking? When it came to Henry and Cora.

At first, Lenore didn't believe her one bit. Her Henry, cheating on her with her friend? Nonsense. She didn't believe it until she and Cora were out on a picnic and she saw the diamond necklace she thought Henry was going to give to her. Fuelled by anger, Lenore yelled and screamed at Cora before Cora tipped over and fell to her death. All of a sudden, she started to come up with a really good excuse as to what happened to Cora--after all, her dear husband wanted to throw her into an asylum for no good reason, even when she started nearly eating everything in the room.

But when she found out that she was slowly being poisoned by arsenic from these pasilies pills, oohhh boy, that also tipped Lenore off--to the point that she tore her husband's neck out with her teeth like a vampire. She even sent off evidence to the police, so if something happens to her or if she dies, the police can have the evidence.

The whole hunting secret was so bad--made me think of another hunting event that went wrong--and even though I really hated Henry SO MUCH because of this secret and all of his manipulations and things like that that when he got what he deserved, I was so happy. Because the ending went so well, Lenore and Carmilla left, even the question at the end was so good--

"You must be so terribly hungry, Lenore." (I'm paraphrasing it)

But that was such a really good ending to a really good book, and now I need to read more from Kat Dunn.

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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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