Book Review: The Duchess Deal (Girl Meets Duke #1) by Tessa Dare

The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Perfection.

That is the only word I can come up with after reading this book-Perfection. Not only was it cute, fun, and really funny, it also had its moments of seriousness, and how the Duke of Ashbury was ashamed and terrified of the fact that people would look at him because of the scars that he got when he was in Waterloo fighting Napoleon. I honestly didn't give a flying fig about Ashbury's scars-like Emma's friends, they really didn't care one bit about them. Emma didn't neither-all she saw was a man that she loved and even though it was a marriage of convenience, to me, it was done right-it a good way.

Emma is a seamstress and the daughter of a vicar who one day stumbles into Ash's home to get money for her rent. Ash took one good look at her, and offered her hand in marriage, since his ex-fiancee didn't want to marry him. But Ash has some rules for her:

1. They will be husband and wife by night only.
2. No lights and no kissing.
3. No questions about his horrible scars.
4. Last, and most importantly-once she's pregnant with his heir, they need never to share a bed again.

....hold on, let me laugh for a minute. Okay, I'm done laughing. Because even though I understand the rules, I really think these rules are very stupid and why in the nine hells would you make that rule, my dude? But the more I read and the more you see Emma try to abide by those rules, she's throwing them out the window and tries to help him come ouf of his shell, even though in the papers he became The Monster of Mayfair, which was pretty funny and the way he got the moniker was by walking around and taking care of bad people, as if he was Bruce Wayne. He even scared Emma's vicar father into apologizing to Emma, which was very sweet to do.

Emma turned out to be my favorite character because she didn't let her husband's problems get in her way of living her life. She made friends, tried to help Ash out by getting him out the house and stuff, and also getting into fights with him, in which they come back to each other. The spice in the book was really good and I am going to read more of this series because this is a really good book and my first book by Tessa Dare.

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Book Review: Only a Monster by Vanessa Len

Only a Monster by Vanessa Len
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It took me a while to pick this up, and I have to say...I'm glad that I read it, but it was too weird for me. I thought when I saw the word "monster," they're gonna turn into monsters, and the monster hunters are going to hunt them down and kill them. Instead, the "monsters" in the book are people who steal time, and then they time travel, and the monster hunters go after them and put them down so they won't go and take more time from humans. Which is fine, I don't mind that, because it sounds very interesting.

But Joan, the main character, took me out of the book completely. When she first started stealing time from people, she got scared and worried and started acting like she was a problem. When she meets the Oliver family with Nick, and watches Nick kill them and give her a warning to not steal time from humans or he'll put her down, she gets scared and tries to save her family from them, trying to see reason. All throughout the book, she keeps trying to save people, trying to stop them from killing other monsters and coming up with ways to do it. When we have the sensible people, Ruth and Aaron, the monsters who steal time while Joan is half-human, are telling her no.

She constantly keeps telling them no, this is another way, blah, blah, blah. It started to irritate me the more I read it because she wants to save her family from the pain and the hate that her family is going through, but it just doesn't work at all, and she's failing or falling flat on her face each time. Some of her ideas do work, but other than that they don't, and it's nice to see her try, but it reality it really doesn't work.

I did enjoy the time traveling and how they travel through time, and I wanted to know more about that. It sounds like fun. But Joan kept ruining everything, which is annoying and it kind of took me out of the book. I don't think I'll pick up the rest of the books in this series because of how Joan is trying to be a superhero when, in reality, the things she wants to do, she can't do because of what's going on around her. I liked this book, but not enough to keep reading more of the series.

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Book Review: Ace in the Hole (Black Badge #3) by Rhett C. Bruno & Jaime Castle

Ace in the Hole by Rhett C. Bruno
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One: I didn't know that this was the last book of the series. I thought they were going to do another book, and that would be it. But to be the last book and for it to end the way it did? Perfect. I loved every bit of it.

Two: I'm going to miss Crowley and Rosa SO, SO MUCH. These two were so much fun to read about, seeing them go around the West, trying to stop Ace, Heaven and Hell, and also trying to figure out what Rosa is and find someone who can train her with her ever-growing powers. I also liked how she kept trying to stop Crowley from doing the wrong things and wants him to do things her way, even though sometimes it doesn't work at all, which cracks me up sometimes because he gets frustrated and wants to do things his way instead of hers.

Three: The interesting characters that came up here-we got Ace, Chekoketh, Judas Iscariot, and also George Washington, but as a vampire. Dracula does show up at the end, but the one thing I'm stuck on is GEORGE WASHINGTON AS A VAMPIRE. WHO NEEDS VAMPIRIC DENTURES. I honestly crackled the moment I read that, picturing him as a vampire who needs vampiric dentures just so he can drink blood. And he lives in his tower-perfect. Now I can't stop thinking about it each time I look at a picture of the Washington Tower. I think.

But to me, this felt like if Geralt and Yennefer were dropped in the West to find out what Yen is, while also fighting monsters, and this was very fun to read. I didn't care about Ace one bit, even though he got on my nerves. I just enjoyed one last right with Crowley, and the ENDING shocked me. The ENDING. But I did enjoy it nonetheless and I'm sad it's over :(

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Book Review: From Bad to Cursed by Lana Harper

From Bad to Cursed by Lana Harper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

From Bad to Cursed was a really fun time. I enjoyed the mystery aspect to it, like Isidora and Rowan are detectives looking to find out who did it, and at the same time, fall in love. This book feels like a little witchy cozy mystery but with a bit of spice, and I loved every bit of it.

Isadora Arvamov is the necromantic demon-summoning, animal-loving witch who starts off the book by summoning a demon. Then, during a tryout of who's going to be the May Queen for Beltane, that's when a curse was cast on one of the contestants-Holly Thorn--and that sets off this mystery of who cast the curse and how to stop them. And the only way Isadora can find out why is by teaming up with her archnemesis, Rowan Thorn, the cousin of Holly Thorn.

At first, Issa and Rowan didn't wanna work with each other, and the fact that they used to work at an animal shelter together didn't work, but I thought the way they worked together to find out who cursed Holly was perfect. They went to talk to their suspects, they did research, and then when it turned out that it was one of Issa's family members, especially the great, great, great, great grandmother,r Valentina Arvamov, who really hated Alastair Thorn for some odd reason.

At the same time, Isadora is also the creative director of her family's haunted house, and she came up with a story that sounds just like her and Rowan's story during the mystery, and the two curses, to me, were very interesting. I say that because of the way they were cast and how Issa and Rowan, mostly Issa, when the Dead Skull Hex appeared to try and kill Rowan, tried to stop it. Even went to his cousin's place to get a necklace bound with a curse, and then there's something that Issa has been hiding from her mother, Elena, for years now.

Isadora doesn't want to work for her family business anymore. She wants to be a fashion designer. She has so many ideas that she wants to create, but she doesn't want to leave her family. When she does tell her mother after the fight between her, Rowan, Valentina, and the demon she summoned in the first half of the book (whose name I've clearly forgotten) and the sad part was, Valentina had possessed Natalia (again) and it took Issa to try and save her sister, only to call upon a demon to do it and to curse the said demon back to hell.

I really enjoyed this one, not like the first one because I really enjoyed that one, but I really liked this one so much.

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Book Review: Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson #9)

Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Oh, how I miss this world of Mercy Thompson.

The fights, the writing, the action? Chef's Kiss.

In Fire Touched, Mercy and her mate, werewolf alpha Adam, fight a troll, and they are entangled in fae politics when a fire-touched boy named Aiden, who calmed down the tibicena named Joel, who couldn't control it, but now thanks to Aiden, he can. Once the fight with the troll was over and Mercy declared, with the Walking Stick, that the Colombia Basin pack is going to protect the Tri-Cities from the evil fae and anyone who wants Aiden.

The backlash from it?

Adam gets tired of his pack hating on Mercy and tells them to fuck off in a nice way. Adam and Mercy go with Thomas and Margaret to meet with the Gray Lords to come up with a deal that everyone can exist, and to go to the Underhill to get an artifact to give to the Gray Lords. Oh, and somehow Baba Yaga is in this as well.

Weirdly.

We don't know why.

She was just there.

Okay then....

But it turned out great, because there was a fight in the Underhill between Mercy, Adam, Zee, and Aiden vs the Widow Queen and her people. Even though Mercy didn't shift, she fought and won against the Widow Queen, and also thanks to Aiden, they made a deal with Tilly (the Underhill) so Aiden can come every once in a while to see her and that the door will be closed and no one can come to the Underhill without her permission.

All in all, it was a really good book and I enjoyed myself so much.

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Book Review: Gifted and Talented by Olivie Blake

Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even though this book was so weird and odd and also very messy, Gifted and Talented is a pretty good book that I feel like I need to break down this book by separating it by the siblings-Arthur, Meredith, and Eilidh.

Arthur-Arthur is the son of Thayer Wren, husband to Gillian, and lover to both Yves and Philippa, along with being a congressman. Arthur is losing his second race of being a congressman, he's in love with his wife while being with both Yves and Philippa, and he can short-circuit things with electricity. Arthur one day dreams up a little girl he named Riot, and it's all good and all, but there's a little problem.

And the little problem is that he keeps dying and coming back to life.

He doesn't know why he keeps doing that, and the more he keeps doing it, the more he has a fear that he's actually gonna die. When it got to the point that he had to contact Lou, an old friend of his sister's after he dies again and also learns of his father's death, he does spend time with her and tells her what's going on, and then he learns, close to the end, that he was eating one of Yves's candies and that's why he keeps dying over and over again. But at least he told his wife that he loved her, and also learned that something very bad happened to Philippa.

Meredith-Meredith is the owner and CEO of Birdsong, which has an app called Chip, an app that can swear that can make you happy. When she was about to give a talk about her app, she gets a text message from her ex-boyfriend, Jamie, that says I know what you did all Pretty Little Liars L style. Meredith tries not to talk about it, but when she meets up with Jamie again, it turns out that he was going to expose her through an article he wrote, which is about to be published soon.

Meredith tries everything she could to stop Jamie from publishing the article, even knowing that her business partner, Wren, jumped ship, and her boyfriend, Cass...well...she may or may not love him. Throughout Meredith's chapters, and though the pain of losing her father, Meredith wants to get back with Jamie, completely forgetting about her boyfriend, COMPLETELY. Like, girlie, why?? Why do you want to ruin the relationship you have with Cass to get back with your ex, who's trying to take you down? I don't get it. But at least, at the end, Meredith decided to go to jail and finally cleared the air with Lou after all these years and hating her so much.

Eilidh: I feel like Eilidh is a character that is...boring as crap. She used to be a dancer, but she's just living her life, kind of drifting through it. She has a crush on her father's assistant, not even knowing that she was sleeping with her father and is pregnant with his child. Eilidh can also bring the apocalypse, with a bunch of locuses attacking the plane, setting her house on fire, and on top of that, she's finding her voice with a lot of things. She's tired of Arthur and Meredith pretending that she's not in the room, calling each other Sister Death or Brother Annoying or something like that, and she gave a beautiful performance at her father's wake. Is Eilidh my favorite? Not that much, but she reminds me of myself in some ways.

I enjoyed this book. It was messy and had magic and was good. It made he have some ideas about a new story but that's just it.

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Book Review:I Am Not Jessica Chen by Ann Liang

I Am Not Jessica Chen by Ann Liang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I Am Not Jessica Chen kinda hit me because when i was in high school (and, well, now) I felt like this for a while, which I felt like it was weird at first, but then the more I think about it, the more I realize that this feels like a diary of some sort, and we're reading the journal entries or stories of a girl who switched bodies with her cousin, and it felt like a Picture of Dorian Gray story, with the cousin, Jenna, living her cousin's Jessica's life, all the while her presence was disappearing the more she was living in Jessica's body.

Jenna Chen is tired of being second best to her perfect cousin, Jessica. She wants to be perfect, just like her, and wants her life and her friends and everything else that Jessica has. One day, while outside with Jessica and Aaron, a shooting star flew over, and Jenna made a wish that she wanted to be like her cousin.

When she woke up the next morning, her wish had been granted.

Jenna is now her perfect cousin Jessica-she's has friends that love her, a school and classmates that adores her....but she also has some hard classes that might hurt Jenna's brain, a childhood friend that she thought was in love with Jessica but it turns out that he's in love with her, and oh...oh. Jessica did a bad thing, and someone is blackmailing her to confess to what she did.

Also Jenna's presence is disappearing from everyone's memories.

Oof.

Jenna is trying to figure out where Jessica went once she made the wish, and she teams up with Aaron to find out what happened and how to get the both of them back, and when she does find out where Jessica was at the end, the two forgave one another, Jenna confronted the blackmailer who wants Jessica to apologize for plagerizing her work, and almost got into a fight with a jealous boy, like Jenna was, with Jessica after she won an award that was named after his grandmother.

I really did like this book because it does hit home in places I didn't think it would hit. This is my second favorite Ann Liang novel, and I want to read more of her books because I found my new auto-buy author.

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Book Review: Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Book Lovers by Emily Henry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book feels like a love letter to Book Lovers--and I also love that I'm Nora (job-wise, not relationship-wise). I kept seeing myself in Nora each time she thinks something is about to go right, but then something bad happens and she tries to fix it and tries to keep everything together, like her sister suggesting that they go to Sunshine Falls to have a sister trip, only to find out that the guy Nora met in NYC, Charlie Lastra, actually lives there and works at his family's bookstore.

Nora tries to avoid him, doing almost everything on the list that her sister, Libby, wants to do while they're there. There is a LOT of the miscommunication trope, with her thinking that Libby is getting a divorce from her husband, or the fact that Charlie is a terrible person that hates books but work for a publishing company and oh he hates her so much only to find out that Charlie lives with his parents to help run the bookstore and also works at home with Nora with a book her author, Dusty, is writing that she thinks is about her.

Nora tries so hard to not be grumpy and tries her best to do her job and be with her sister and not fall in love with Charlie, but she did. But when she finds out that Libby is moving to Sunshine Falls and not stay in NYC, that's when she finally cries, even when she yells at her sister to make her fall out, only to find out she has iron problems while pregnant.

To me, that's very interesting, and I loved that, weirdly, about the characters and the world that was in the book. Nora, Libby and Charlie are my favorite characters, and Book Lovers became the second book that she have written, and I need to read more of her work because I LOVE Emily Henry so much.

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Book Review: Rebel Witch (The Crimson Moth #2) by Kristen Ciccarelli

Rebel Witch by Kristen Ciccarelli
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh. My. God.

This book right here...might be my favorite book of all time.

I thought Heartless Hunter was the one everyone liked, and I can see why. The action in this book kept me locked in throughout the book, and the romance? GideonRune, the new loves of my life, I love them so much. The growth and the romance the two had while they dealt with the witch Cressida Roseblood, and also how to save one more witch before they left their home to go somewhere else....

...at least, that was the plan. Instead, it turned into a save for Rune from being killed by Cressida because she's the last Roseblood witch alive, and Cressida needed her to wake up her sisters. Rune and Gideon have to fight against the clock to protect Rune and get her far away from Cressida, while she kills the Good Commander and becomes Queen.

The relationship between Rune and Gideon was very sweet and beautiful. Even though he betrayed Rune at the end of Heartless Hunter, in Rebel Witch he does try to hate her and try not to think about her, but he does, even when he goes to the other country and try to get her to tell him what Cressida is planning. Even though he has a curse placed by Cressida because she wants him to be loyal to her after everything she'd done to him, he still loves Rune.

Rune does too, even though she has to pretend to love a prince just to get an army for Cressida, then turn around and leave, just to go back into Gideon's arms, but not after she works with the Blood Guard as well to try and stop Cressida. When she finds out that she's the last heir of the Roseblood witches, she is forced to go back to Cressida, but not to help her.

Oh no.

She wants to try and destroy her from the inside while trying to save the world--which she does, and also break the curse between Cressida and Gideon--which she does. The ending was perfect, seeing the married and living in the Wintersea House, and this duology just because my favorite duology of all time.

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Book Review: Heartless Hunter (Crimson Moth #1) by Kristen Ciccarelli

Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Have I found a book that everyone is talking about, that I've been sleeping on for a while, and have now discovered my new favorite author?

Yes.

Does this have everything I never thought I needed?

Also yes.

Heartless Hunter is about a girl named Rune who's secretly a witch, but she's playing two versions of herself: a socialite and a superhero of witches, kind of like Scarlet Witch. She's saving witches from the horrible Blood Guard, witch hunters that are hunting down witches and eradicating them. One witch hunter she cannot stand is Gideon Sharpe, the brother of her friend Alexander Sharpe. Rune, Verity, and Alex are trying to save as many witches as they can under the name the Crimson Moth, and Gideon has been hunting down the Crimson Moth for two years.

When Rune learns that a witch that she knows is locked up, she and her friends plot to figure out where she is and how to get her, and one of the things she does is fake-date Gideon, even though she hates his guts and wants him dead as a doornail for what he and the Blood Guard has done to the witches she couldn't save. She doesn't expect Alex to reveal that he's in love with her and asks her to go to Caelis with him so they can be married and live forever so she can be free. Nor did she expect to actually fall in love with Gideon, but she did.

The relationship between Rune and Gideon was very nice and cool, very slow-burn, wasn't expecting to love that since I'm not a huge slow-burn romance type of girly, but this was written just right. And the ending?! With that ending and another witch coming back from the dead?? Whaaat?

I'm already reading Rebel Witch as we speak and I'm already in love with this duology, gonna be my favorite one out of the year, I can just feel it. The story is so good, the way the world and the characters pull you in as you read...love it.

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Book Review: Immortal by Sue Lynn Tan

Immortal by Sue Lynn Tan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My first review in a long time...god I miss doing them.

I read Immortal by Sue Lynn Tan and I enjoyed myself. I liked Liyen and how headstrong she was, trying to make sure the choices she made for her kingdom of Tianxia were the perfect choices for it-which means that she's not gonna bow down to the Queen and get her blessing. She wants the Shield of Rocks and Sand I believe so they can take down the barrier so they can live in peace and not locked up in a shield and not being able to go out to the world, to see it and see what is out there. While she was trying to do that, that's when she met the God of War, Zhangwei, whom she hates immediately because he burned her home down and also possibly killed her beloved grandfather, which was terrible, but there was a reason why.

Her grandfather gave her the Divine Lotus Flower because she was poisoned by the Wangchuan Waters, and he gave it to her instead of Queen Caihong, so she could heal and live. When the God of War comes and tries to get her to fall in love with him so he can get the Divine Lotus, she starts to fall for it...only for her to learn that it was all a trick to get her to relinquish the flower, and he tries to get it from her by stabbing her.

Liyen gets mad and goes back to Tianxia, where she tries to navigate the court without the blessing of Queen Caihong when the darker forces attack and she's in their clutches. She meets Lord Dalian and learns a secret: her Aunt Shou is one of them. Lord Dalian wants revenge on Queen Caihong for what happened to their people and how his sister died. But the more Liyen learns about the past and what happened, even going to the Temple of the Crimson Moon to learn about her past. When she rejects both destines and rewrites her own, that's when she gets the memories of the time she was immortal and remembers the love she shared and loved with the God of War, Zhangwei.

The ending was slow, but at the same time, I enjoyed myself reading it. I was close to crying when I read the ending, and I didn't want this story to end. I wanted to know what happened to Liyen and Zhangwei, though it did also turn out funny when he came back when she summoned him and said that she's gonna marry him in front of the whole entire court, and she was trying not to laugh (but I laughed because that whole thing was funny.) I enjoyed this book and now I wanna read all of Sue Lynn Tan's works :)

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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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Book Review: White Horse Black Nights by Evie Marceau (The Godkissed Bride #1)

White Horse Black Nights by Evie Marceau
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Godiva x Snow White romantasy with the bodyguard trope done right? I shockingly loved this one. Originally, I wasn't supposed to read this book till I was ready for it, but I clicked on it, downloaded it, and I read it and OMG I loved it. I wasn't ready for it, I just jumped on it and let it take me to where it was gonna take me, and I loved every bit of it.

Sabine Darrow has been locked up in A convent for about twelve years, and she can talk to animals, but at the convent, she was abused there, until one day, she was released from the convent...to get married to someone she doesn't even know. She is told that she is to recreate a very famous horseback riding scene, naked, and she complies, even though she doesn't want to. Sabine has plans to run away and never marry this dude that she doesn't know, but when her bodyguard is Wolf, a friend and hunter of her husband, that's when things get complicated.

For one, Wolf is just there to protect her and to take her through the cities so everyone can see who the lord has taken to wife, but Sabine sees it as torture and embarrassment. All she needs is one chance for her to run away from Wolf and leave with Aiden to go someplace else so she can be free...but when she does get that chance, that's when things...don't....end up...right.

When Wolf finds out what happens, that's when he, along with her horse Myst, goes to find her, and it turns out that Aiden and his friends are from another kingdom that has been quiet for a long time and is found to be alive and kidnapping girls to take them back to their king--what they don't know is that there's a reason that the king is kidnapping these girls and bringing them to their kingdom.

Maybe it's to awaken the old fae gods....maybe it's to finally have the godkissed powers they truly coveted after all these years....

Whatever it is that the kingdom wants, that's what Wolf wants to know, even if he is falling love with Sabine and wants her for himself. Even puts her as his bodyguard throughout the castle to protect her from his friend even though he's going to marry her soon and will be sharing a bed with him as well.

I enjoyed this book, I am going to continue with this series because it's now got me curious about things now and how things are gonna be in the next book.

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Book Review: A Whole New World by Liz Braswell (Twisted Tale #1)

A Whole New World by Liz Braswell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An Aladdin retelling but in a Twisted Tale form?

Perfection.

But...sadly it let me down. Mostly because of the way Aladdin went when he went to the Tiger Cave, I think it's called, and he did get the genie's lamp, but he gave it to Jafar... who turned around and abused the Genie. Also in my head, I heard Robin Williams, so that's probably why I didn't like it as much as I thought. Then the way the sultan was killed and Princess Jasmine ran away so she can fight with the Street Rats was cool, and also how both Aladdin and Jasmine feel in love during this really stupid war between them and Jafar was alright in my opinion.

But the one thing that made me mad throughout the book was Jafar and all of his rules and dealings and what he did to the magic carpet. Like I knew Jafar was evil AF, but my god that's straight-up evil. When he was defeated, he told the Genie his final wish--that all magic dies with him--was pretty messed up, but either way I still enjoyed it, even though the problems that bugged me to the point that I gave it three stars.

I am gonna continue reading the Twisted Tales series, but this one just wasn't my favorite one.

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Book Review: The Royals Upstairs by Karina Halle

The Royals Upstairs by Karina Halle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my first time reading anything by Karina Halle and I'm so glad that I did. This book was SO GOOD and made me want to read more books by her and also read more books that are second-chance romances. I normally don't read contemporary romances because it's not my thing, but reading this one makes me want to read more, and also read second chance romances, especially if they're like this one.

James Hunter is a royal bodyguard who once had a relationship with the royal nanny, Laila Bruset, that they had to keep a secret. When they broke it off because of James's fear of being in a relationship, James thought that they'd never see each other again...until now, when they are working for Prince Magnus and watching over him and the children. James and Laila agree to keep it professional, but when they start catching feelings for one another, that's when things start to turn romantic.

I loved this relationship because James and Laila, along with the relationship of Prince Magnus and Princess Ella and their children, Bjorn and Tor, and Laila's grandmother made the book feel alive in ways that I'd never thought I'd like. It was funny and kept me up a couple of times reading how the two worked together to make sure that the kids were alright and make sure nothing happened to them while they went to Oslo to the museum or when they were with Magnus and Ella. I really enjoyed this book, I'm so glad that I read it, and now I need to read more Karina Halle books please and thank you.

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Book Review: The Crescent Moon Tearoom by Silvia Sivinski

The Crescent Moon Tearoom by Stacy Sivinski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Crescent Moon Tearoom is a book like a warm hug from a friend. That is the only way I can describe the book and how cozy it was. I wanted to stay there and never ever leave, that's how good it was. I didn't mean to fall in love with the characters and the writing, and how much I found that I needed it. It was also witchy as well, which was something I really liked, along with the Quigley sisters finding their true calling--one becoming a part of the circus, one becoming an author, and the last one becoming a Diviner of the City.

I felt like I wanted to drink all of the tea that was featured in the book, and also wished I could read tea leaves, but eh, I'll be fine without it. I also wished I could live in the tearoom with the sisters as they figured out the tasks the three witches needed so they could do it. I liked how they used different types of seeing magic to see which one it was that they had to go do, while at the same time the Council was pushing them to do their own thing in the background.

I forgot the sisters' names (my bad) but I still enjoyed reading them going their separate ways while the other sister wanted them together because of a curse. But it turns out their mother was haunting them and wanting them to be happy instead of being in that house alone together, running their tea shop. But it does turn out that one of the sisters's powers was growing and they became the Diviner of the City after the other Diviner stepped down, and the other two did their own thing. To me, it means that they're still family, but they're moving on to bigger and better things.

I also like the house in the book too, feeling almost realistic to the sisters and to me as I kept on reading. I wanted to live in the house too.

All in all, a really good cozy book that was very fun indeed.

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Book Review: A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang

A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first time I read this book, I didn't review it because life happened.

I reread it this time, and I still loved it so much.

This is a retelling of Xishi and how she brought a kingdom and a king down using her charms, wit, and bravery, even when she thought she failed to do so. I liked that she fell for both men but tried to stay loyal to her country of Yue. But falling for a king who immediately gets obsessive with her and pretty much does everything she wants without a care in the world? Not listen to his advisors about what the other side is doing and only wants peace, and gets upset when he's either reminded of his father and how his father hated the Yue Kingdom and wanted it to fall.

But as soon as Xishi came in the court, that's when he fell head over heels for her, and he does everything in the beginning to get her to be with him, and she refuses his advances until he finally comes around and finds out why. Xishi does use her wound she got when she was coming to the Wu Kingdom to get him to come to her, and once he finds out that she lived terribly, that's when everything changed for Xishi and wrapping the king around her finger? Easy like Sunday Morning.

This book was really good and very slow in the beginning, but when it picks up in the middle, it picks up. The book goes on to show how war can affect people, and the ending shows the painful reasons to never trust someone. This book felt like a good C-Drama you just wanna watch over and over again until the end, when you see the minister live on without her until the end.

I will reread this book over and over again because it was that good and I enjoyed myself reading this book.

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Book Review: Sweet Sin by Sav R. Miller

Sweet Sin by Sav R. Miller
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Finally doing a review for this novella, and I have to say...

I'm sat.

Now, normally, I don't read books like that AT ALL. But ever since I read Hooked, I've had this weird itch to actually try and find some dark romances that are just like Hooked, but I stopped because I felt like no one could grab my attention like Hook did.

Until Kal.

Kal pushed Hook to the side, grabbed my hand, and said, "Hold tight, sweetheart. I know you're scared right now, but it's okay. I got you. Let me walk you through my madness." and boy howdy, did he walk me through it. I sometimes had to go, "Yous dis crazy my boy?" while reading this book, and he looked me DEAD in my eyes and said, "Yup." and once the novella was over, I sat, I was on my little ol' knees, and I wanted MORE of Kal. I fell in LOVE with this man, and I'm glad to read this novella, because now I want to read the book and enjoy him.

Even though I liked Elena as well, I didn't like the fiancé she was with. I really wanted Kal to kill him because he put his hands on her, but for some reason, he left and never dealt with her after their spicy, forbidden encounter, and she now has to deal with it before the book even starts, and now I'm curious now about where Kal was and is he ever gonna show up in Boston again. I need to know this because he just up and left without even telling her.

This is my favorite novella of all time and I'm glad that I read it.

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Book Review: That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human by Kimberly Lemming

That Time I Got Drunk And Saved a Human by Kimberly Lemming
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Did I read this book in two days? Yes.

Did I enjoy myself reading this book? Yes, yes, I did.

Did I wish that there were book four in this amazing series? Yuup.

What was the only downfall to this book? Nothing...all except that it was longer.

This was the first fantasy romance I read that had kidnapping in it and also a dragon getting drunk on ayahuasca and then actually turning around and kidnapping the girl back. Then the two are trying to figure out the relationship, when one hasn't seen actual people in five years and another one just can't figure out how to talk to people, let alone shake people's hands without breaking them. I truly enjoyed this book for reasons that might surprise you.

One, I really like how Dante and Cherry were taking the time to know each other, even though it was mostly Dante trying to pry it out of her and then get so confused about how to do this that he calls up Fallon and Felix and ask them how the hell do he talk to his wife. I found it very adorable to see a huge dragon like him flustered about trying to figure out how to talk to his wife and trying not to mess it up at the same time. I also liked how he gave Cherry the time it needed to get to know him, and when they did, it was perfect.

The spice in this book might be my favorite written spice in a while. Many times, they try to smash, but they can't because something keeps interrupting them, which was pretty funny. When they had their tryst in the gardens in Kirkwall (and yes, my brain IMMEDIATELY went to Dragon Age,) and they witnessed that funny argument with Rachel and her beau who also had a lovely tryst...in the same place...but different places...with Rachel's sisters.

Ooof.

After Dante gets kidnapped himself and ends up at a gladiator ring, he nearly kills the king because he was searching for Cherry, it turns out that his sister found her, also the taking sword Alexis is back, and she found out that the white kitty Rebekah is a different type of beast, which was shocking because I thought Rebekah was a cute kitty. Apparently, she can turn into a beast and turn people into zombies.

All in all, I truly enjoyed this book and I'm sad that this is the last book in the series because I really enjoyed this one so, so much :)

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Book Reviews: Yona of the Dawn Volume 1 by Mizuho Kusanagi and A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon

Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 1 by Mizuho Kusanagi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

*laughs in walking towards the room where Su-On killed the king* Hey, Su-On, how's your health insurance?

APPARENTLY IT'S GREAT!!!!

(that's it, that's the review, but watch the anime, it's SO GOOD)

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A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Magical Girl Retires was a pretty darn good book, even though it was short and sweet. This book deals with climate change, suicidal ideation a bit, time, and how this book feels magical, but at the same time it also brings up the ever-loving fact about us millennials: we're broke, looking for a job, and want to live our best lives. But when a car pulls up and tells you that you're a magical girl, you don't just sit there and wait for something to happen, oh no: you get your ass up and go with the girl, and train to become a magical girl.

The girl thought she was the Magical Girl of Time, but during training with A Roa, she was not the Magical Girl of Time. Someone else is. But when the Magical Girl of Time started triggering every single climate disaster, the company or people that helped the Magical Girls got them all together to stop the Magical Girl of Time, but they couldn't do it. So who did stop the Magical Girl of Time?

The millennial girl who has a credit card for a weapon and was wearing a badass suit to do so.

The Magical Girl of Time was shocked, but then, being a villain she thought it was lame until the millennial girl wished for her to stop, and she did. In the end, in the chapter titled "A Magical Girl Retires", the magical girl of wishes and consequences retired, saying that if she does use her gift, it would be dangerous for her to go out and fight because she would have to deal with the consequences of her choices while also paying for it.

This was a gem of a book and I'm so glad that I brought it and read it, because it was a fun little book and also very cute and very adorable.

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Book Review: World of Warcraft: Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War by Christie Golden

Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War by Christie Golden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

To the people who told me that Jaina was right in this book: y'all were right.

Ya'll were right.

Do I really wanna go to Origrimmar and smack the unholy hell out of Garrosh Hellscream after WHAT HE DID TO THERAMORE??? WHEN THERAMORE DID NOTHING TO HIM??? NOT ONE DAMN THING TO HIM? Yes, yes I do. Because what he did made me so mad. Even when he actually wanted to do it again, cleansing all of Alliance, who did NOTHING to him at all. They were just living their best lives and minding their own business for him to just up and decide that he wanted to take over the world and get rid of the Alliance so the Horde could rule Azeroth.

Baine and Vol'jin know what Garrosh is doing and are trying so hard to tell him that what he's doing is wrong with a capital W, but Garrosh seems to not hear it. He uses a mana bomb to obliterate Theramore and calls it a victory, thinking that Jaina is dead when she isn't. She is so angry at what happened to her home and her people that she steals that Focusing Iris and wants to destroy Origrimmar like Garrosh did to Theramore, but Kalecgos and Thrall stopped her from doing just that, and she turns around and uses it to destroy Horde ships...

...which made one Garrosh Hellscream very upset.

This book was so fast-paced that I sometimes couldn't keep up with everything, but those last couple pages, feeling Jaina's pain when Theramore was destroyed by Garrosh and wanting revenge...it was the most beautiful thing ever. This was a six star read for me and it's becoming a favorite read of 2025.

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Book Review: The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was SO COZY. I enjoyed every bit of it, even yelled "LET THIS GIRL HAVE HER JAM SHOP AND HER REMEDIES ON THE SIDE!"

Kiela and Caz has to be one of my favorite characters of all time. They work together to see how they can solve the island they live on and on top of that make sure that the magic they are working on is secretive and is also called "remedies". What Kiela didn't expect was to fall for a seahorse farmer named Larran and the whole village (all except one grumpy old man who can sit his tail down) protecting her and Caz and a cactus named "Meep" who is adorable at the same time.

This book feels like a weird magical version of a cozy game (I'm not knocking it, but it's not my style) and you get to read Kiela minding her business farming some fruits for some nice jam and making it into jams for people who want some. I also liked how she became good friends with the people from the island and how at first she didn't want anything to do with them. She just wanted to be on her own, and talk to no one because she was a librarian and wanted to protect the books she brought with her, only for her to turn around and become and jam seller and also a place for magical remedies.

Caz was the one that cracked me up the most. He was always coming up with so many excuses for Kiela when she couldn't come up with anything, and also I really like Meep and how he became their character while they are helping Kiela save the island with one spell at a time. The books made me smile as I read them because they show that Caz, Meep, and Kiela know how to use them and want to use them very carefully and not mess up anything.

The islanders were the most favorite characters of all time. I felt like I could live there and never leave, and live my best life on this island. The relationships built on it were really cute and also pretty darn funny if you know what I mean. I want to stay on that island forever, eat all of the treats in the bakery, enjoy the seahorses, and have a very good time. Would read this book again.

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Book Review: Big Girls Do Cry by Carl Weber

Big Girls Do Cry by Carl Weber
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was yet another roller coaster that I loved so so much, and it happened in Richmond, Virginia...

Egypt and Rashad had just moved into their new house with Isis in tow after everything she did in the last book. Egypt and Rashad are very happy and in love...except they want one thing: a baby that they can call their own. Sadly, not even Tammy can give them a baby, so they ask the one person who can: Egypt's sister, Isis, who was still pining over Tony, who is a married man and had kids of his own. Isis agrees to be the surrogate for Egypt and Rashad, but things don't go well, especially when Isis is flirting with her sister's man and is still messing around with Tony. When she finally does get pregnant with Egypt and Rashad's baby, everything is fine and also annoying, with Egypt almost trying to control everything Isis does to keep the baby. But when the baby came, though...the eyes the baby had weren't Rashad's.

Turns out, the baby's real baby daddy is none other than Tony.

Now, during all of this, there is a second party that comes to play in the story. Loraine and Jerome are besties working in the same place and living their best lives. Loraine has the perfect marriage--or some people think since her husband Leon has been putting his hands on her. When Loraine finds a pair of red silk panties between the seats of her sofa, she starts thinking that Leon is cheating on her. It does happen again during a sorority meeting, when she was being nominated for sorority leader or something like that.

Things just don't feel right at home, and Loraine kicks Leon out, and then she turns around and starts seeing people--an army man I believe named Terrence whom she slept with under the stars near a beautiful fountain, and an old friend named Michael. Everything was going well, she was having a sizzling affair, and Leon crying that he wanted her back. Even in therapy she finally says that the sex was terrible (Leon is a one-minute man, apparently).

Jerome is a gay man who only wants the best for his bestie, but after he sleeps with one man named Peter McMann, that's when things start turning dark. With everything Peter is doing--calling him, sending photos of him with an aspiring NBA star, a woman who was paid to pretend that she was sleeping with Leon when in reality she wasn't, sending racy photos of him and said NBA star in the parking lot, basically stalking him and making sure that "no one can have him, only he can"...sounds scary. But when Peter tells Loraine and shows him everything he's done, the besties' friendship is over...or is it?

Really loved this installment of the Big Girls Book Club series, might be my favorite one of all time.

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Book Review: Something on the Side by Carl Weber

Something on the Side by Carl Weber
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a ride for me...a ride I didn't think I would enjoy, but I did.

Tammy wanting a threesome with her husband and her best friend Egypt threw me off a bit. I had a feeling that she was going to regret it, but then things started to get weird when Tammy started getting paranoid about her husband Tim sleeping around with Egypt and regretted even doing the threesome. But one night, her husband decided to get her to sleep with someone else, to get it out of her system. Unfortunately, that sparked an affair that made Tammy regret and think about her husband and she broke it off after Tim discovered that she was cheating on him...oof.

Nikki went through so many things in her life that she's in a happy relationship with her girlfriend, Tiny. She has a son with her baby daddy Dewayne who used to put his hands on her, but once she left and got with Tiny, things were good...until a new guy named Keith appeared and all Nikki could think about was Keith, which made Tiny weirdly jealous. Tiny tried everything to make sure Nikki was still her girl, even though Nikki was walking on eggshells around Tiny. When she starts to sneak around Tiny and be with Keith and starts to eat right, things are going well...until Nikki freaks out over Keith's ding-a-ling not being real and tells them to leave, only to read the letter and find out that Keith is transitioning, and she talked to him and decided that they should take it slow and be friends.

Coco was a straight-up freak- no pun intended. She uses men to get the most expensive things and also gets some on the side, until she meets Jackson Barneshill or something like that and becomes his mistress--the only thing is, she can't see other men. That was the case--she got her Mercedes, she shopped everywhere she wanted in NYC and lives in a bomb-ass apartment. It seemed like Coco had gotten everything she could ever want...until she met Mac Reynolds at a poetry contest and fell deep in love with him. She left Jackson to be with him, and then turns around and leaves him after finding out he was a porn star, thanks to Tammy's gift when she went to see her one day. Coco broke up with him and got back with Jackson, only to turn around and get back with Mac after they met and talked about it.

The reason why I'm putting Isis last is because good lord Isis got on my last damn nerve. Isis is in love with a man named Tony and wants to marry him. She kept pushing it and pushing it, until one day when she was about to smash him after a book club meeting, she got a phone call from Rashad who called her "Pooh". Isis tries to ignore him, tells him to leave her alone, and that she's with Tony now, and that's when things start to go downhill for her. One, when she's in Vegas she finds out that Tony is a married man with kids and decides that she's gonna go to his wife and tell her that she's been with Tony and they've been sleeping together. Did the wife freak out about that? Yes.

But wait--there's more to Isis's madness that even I couldn't even write.

Tony and Rashad do meet and Tony does kick Rashad's ass, but after all of that, Isis thought that she could crawl back to Rashad after choosing Tony...but it turns out that Rashad is with Egypt now, and that sent her into depression to the point that she tried to kill herself, and it took Rashad and Egypt to take her to the hospital to get her stomach pumped and to save her life.

All in all, this was a VERY wild book and I did enjoy myself reading it.

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Book Review: The Witchwood Knot by Olivia Atwater

The Witchwood Knot by Olivia Atwater
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Brittany? Reading a book in two days? Charming.

But all in all, this is my first time reading anything by Olivia Atwater, and I enjoyed this book SO MUCH. I didn't think I would like it the moment I opened the first page. Still, the more I kept reading, the more I escaped into this world and cheered for Winnie as she tried to figure out how to get her Robert back and at the same time, not make deals with faeries and try to undo a knot that has been around the house for a long time. I was freaked out by Robert Murray's father, like freaked out to the point that I shuddered each time he touched her and stroked her hair or did something very creepy to her.

I didn't trust Mr. Quincy for the longest in this book-I kept looking at him sideways as he appeared and then disappeared and tried to do things in the sneakest way and it freaked me out to the point that when he started to help Winnie fight the faeries and help get her charge back was actually pretty cool. His magic and the magic system in this book were very interesting to read about. It was also very cozy, like a warm, gothic hug.

The many faeries and the monsters in the book were also pretty fun to read about as well, because they were fascinating and different, and the faerie tales were also pretty fun to read, like a backstory about what happened to both the characters and how they're going to fight the person who's trying to wake up all the children of Balor so he can take over the world. I wanted to know more about these faeries and also about the one waking up all of the faeries as if he was up for a war or something...

It was really fun and exciting and I enjoyed myself very, very much reading this book. I need to read the rest of the series to see how it all comes ahead.

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Book Review: Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao

Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

THIS BOOK...Even though it is the second book of the series and it's the "What now?" book before the next book, I still enjoyed it, even though it was painful, gave me emotional damage, and made my voice go up each time I said 'I'm fine!' like Ross from FRIENDS in that one episode. This book made me scream, close to crying, gasping out loud that one time, and my mama asking me if I was alright, and that ending that made me go 'EXCUSE ME?!" almost loud.

Wu Zeitan got her revenge and took down the government, and she awoke a 2,010-year-old Emperor to pilot The Yellow Dragon. Who would've thought that the Emperor who awoke in this world changed everything Wu Zeitan wanted? But then, all those changes came with a price. Some people didn't like the way the world was being ruled by this Emperor who had been asleep for this long and was now listening to Wu Zeitan, who had become the Emperess and was trying to come up with so many ways to get him to change Huxia from the old ways to the new ways. The more Zeitan tries to make changes--making a new group of piolets called The Iron Widows, making a group called the Phoenix Ladies or something like that, and also making sure binding feet is not done anymore to women--everything seems to go to hell.

For example, the new revolutionaries called the White Lotus, led by Zhuge Liang, try to get people back to the old ways, decry the Emperor, and ask him to return to the old ways, calling Zu Weitan a wicked woman. Yizhi--we'll get to him later--betraying our trust over and over again by taking an egg out of Zeitan and combining it with the Emperor's sperm so they can have a surrogate and let them have a child, pretending to be on the Emperor's side but in reality he was doing stuff for the Heavenly Court who warned Zeitan that they would do what they did, to betraying them both in the end and running away to the Heavenly Court, where he was hiding and was actually in a relationship with one of the gods.

The end battle scene was so good. I hung on to every word to see how it would end, and I wasn't expecting that ending to happen, or the fact that the emperor is gonna do what I THINK he's gonna do. I hope he doesn't, because then I would honestly fight him. But the ENDING with that 'Mei-Niang? in Shinmin's real voice?

Ow. Just...OW.

I truly enjoyed this series and I loved this book. Is this my favorite book out of the series? Not really but I still enjoyed it nonetheless.

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Book Review: Dragons of Winter Night by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Dragons of Winter Night by Margaret Weis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sooo...this book was fun, painful, and also shocking. The ending was so painful that I was gasping and had to reread it repeatedly to ensure I was reading it correctly. Once I realized that I was, I also screamed into the void because it was just...so painful. Even though I didn't like the character that died, I still felt so bad about it. The splitting up the party thing was something I wasn't even expecting but at the same time it worked out for them, mostly because it became really funny, and reading about Raistlin becoming a show magician and Goldmoon singing that beautiful song...it was a fun time.

The first half of the book was about the dragon orb and taking it back to Sancrist so some order can look at it and discuss it. But when they go into a forest they meet this wilder elf named Silvara and she takes them through the forest, where the Qualinsti and the Kaganesti elves live and Gilthanas and Laurana reunited with their family again, which was kind of cute but at the same time stupid because the father was like, "The orb belongs to the elves, the humans don't need it, the humans don't need any help with what's going on," and all that good stuff. Laurana, even though split up from Tanis to go to Sancrist so they could meet up and see each other again, really didn't want to stay and be treated as if she was a child again, having no say and do what her elders and her father wanted her to do. So after talking about it with everyone, she left her people, along with her brother, who was in love with Silvara, not even knowing that she was a dragon.

Tanis and the others took the Dragon Orb from Silvara and took it far away from the forest and everyone else, and before they went to the forest and followed Silvara, they were attacked by a Dragon Highlord and they were fleeing and tried to run, but they did meet Alhana Starbreeze, and yes, Strum fell in love with her but they couldn't be together, which sucked but at the same time it's okay, because something TERRIBLE AND REALLY BAD HAPPENS TO STRUM. But before I get into that, Strum had to face the Knights of Solamnia all thanks to frickin' Lord Derek Crownguard slandering him one thousand times in front of the Knights, and it took almost a long time to come up with a punishment for Strum.

The punishment?

-Strip him of his titles and such
-Make sure he doesn't borrow any money from the Knights' fund
-He can't wear his father's armor anymore

The reparations because of Lord Derek Crowguard slandering him?
-He's the commander of the Knights of the Crown

Which I'm happy about, and Strum took it all in grace. But I think the funniest part of the book, even though I'm giving Raistlin the BIGGEST side eye ever, is Tasslefoot and Fizban trying to figure out the second dragon's orb and how to use it and all that good stuff. It is a fun time, and going to see the gnomes and how they operate was a fun time and I really enjoyed myself reading that.

Then the whole...dream thing was confusing, Tanis and Kitiara was the most oddest couple pairing I've read because even though they knew each other, Tanis was trying very hard not to fall for her, but then a moment later they're smashing and she's bringing up her brothers, Raistlin interacting with the dragon orb and starts to act VERY weird, Gilthanas falling in love, and at the same time once he realizes that she's a dragon, he starts to spiral and doesn't know what he wants, and Tika and Caramon...I...I have no thoughts on them. Honestly. I really don't.

I really did enjoy it, I am very glad to read this book and to also finally go to the last and final book in this series so I can finally read the next one, which is War of the Twins...yay.

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Book Review: The Whisperwicks: The Labyrinth of Lost and Found by Jordan Lees

The Labyrinth of Lost and Found by Jordan Lees
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was so good that I read it in a day. This book made me smile, gasp, feel all of the emotions when I was reading it. I wasn't prepared for how hard this story would hit me, and honestly, I was ready to rock and roll and join Benjamiah Creek and his adventures with Elizabella, trying to find her brother. This does deal with the topic of death, but it is dealt with so well that I was close to crying.

Benjamiah Creek doesn't believe in magic. He believes in facts and what is real. One day, he receives a doll that he assumes is from his parents, and when he goes to sleep, the doll comes to live as a bird one night and a monkey another night. Benjamiah doesn't believe that this doll is magic, but one night when he goes to sleep, it wakes him up and takes him to a Victorian-era world, filled with promises that are on coins, magic, and dolls that look like his.

Benjamiah meets Hansel and Elizabella; at first, Elizabella doesn't like him. She was upset that her brother was missing and no one was doing anything about it. Then she has an idea that makes her leave her house to go and find her. Benjamiah wakes up and decides to help her, even though she doesn't want him to go. The two go to a forest and find a box with a string in it, named Ariadne, but before that they find a whisperwick that gives them a fragment of a poem that leads them on this adventure of finding Elizabella's brother.

They break into a woman called the Viper's house to find a whisperwick, they meet her daughter and good lord this girl is a terrible person, and then they get caught, go to the mapmakers place to find information about the Minotaur and also find out that they were looking for Ariadne. The shocking discovery that The Minotaur is just a man and not like the famed mythological beast, and all he does is drink and go to sleep, and the betrayal thanks to the evil magus who wanted it so he could reunite with his love.

When they found out what happened to Edwid, Elizabella's brother, it did hurt so, so much. I wasn't expecting it, like I normally would when I read these books, but finding out what he was, how he died....ow. It was so painful that I actually did wanna cry.

This was such a good book, even though it is a middle-grade novel. It was fun, the pictures were fantastic, and I wanna read more of this book series, because this was such a really good book.

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Book Review: A Queen this Fierce and Deadly by Stacia Stark

A Queen this Fierce and Deadly by Stacia Stark
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

WELL.

This book was more painful than Kingdom of Ash--and that's saying something if you know how that book went. This was a really fun time, but at the same time, it was also kind of painful to read when you read what each character went through, like Lorian dying and then coming back to life, Prisca feeling like she's going through hell without the lovely reminder that she's at war with King Renger, and oh at the same time the Queen Kaliera is also planning on killing her so she and her son Jamic can take the throne.

Like...eww, brother, ewww!

And reading Asinia's POV and seeing her and Demos fall in love is cool, but I did get scared when she took the orb from Madinia and did the thing. I thought she died, and that Mrs. Stark wasn't going to do that. But then the more I kept reading, the more I got excited when Asinia was brought back to life thanks to the white light, and the fact that she had the "pure of heart" when she took it from Madinia and destroyed the evil mirror.

I did cheer a bit when Prisca stopped time and she killed Regner, and I was also glad that Zathrian told her that the Queen was up to something, but what happened to her when she was close to killing the king? Painful. I really didn't like how the queen went--I wanted her to live long enough to try and get through the stupid plan of killing Regner, turning around and killing Prisca, and then taking the throne with her son, but it didn't work and she had to die that way.

Lorian felt a tiny bit like Heero Yuy from Gundam Wing a little bit--he's focused on what he has to do, he doesn't care how he does it, and at the same time, he reminds me of Prince Carsilie from The Age of Arrogance and how he cuts down his enemies and is actually sometimes a smartass when he's in a fight. The wedding he and Prisca had was very cute and adorable, and like at all weddings, I almost cried.

But the beginning was the one that nearly killed me. I hated the way Cavis died--I wanted him to live on with his brothers and see Prisca and Lorian become the Hybrid King and Queen. I wanted Taelean to see it as well, but then it didn't go down that way, and I was sad about that. To me, this book had a mixture of Throne of Glass mixed with a tiny bit of World of Warcraft and I enjoyed myself IMMENSELY and I'm so glad I read this series.

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Book Review: A Crown This Cold and Heavy by Stacia Stark

A Crown This Cold and Heavy by Stacia Stark
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Crown This Cold and Heavy might be my favorite book out of the series because that ending was just...shocking. Very, very surprising. Why? It came out of left field for me, and I wasn't expecting it. The battle on the sea was very explosive and The Queen is once again a character I'm very confused about. Does she really want to get rid of the king? Does she really want to put her son on the throne after all this time? What is the Queen's angle in this war?

I think Prisca grew a tiny bit in the book, even though she's holding on to the guilt and pain as we've seen her in the earlier books. When her friend died she tried to get revenge on him, only to reunite with Lorian and her friends to try to get allies for this huge war coming up. We do deal with Conreth, Lorian's brother, and how Conreth just starts bossing Lorien around again, even when he talks to Prisca as if she's nothing more than dirt beneath his feet. I did like how she got the Drakoryx and how it would follow her around, and now it's with Asinia and Demos her brother, which was cool.

Lorian was just happy to be with Prisca and protect her, even when that thing happened and she did the thing she wasn't supposed to do. Even after he talked to his brother, who told him that he had three weeks to find the third faerie gem after finding the second one on Regner's son, Jamic, who was all too happy to help them take down his father so he could rule. Even though no one trusted Jamic because he was the king's son, Jamic really didn't care. All he wanted was to be free and give the power's back.

Reading Madinia's POV was very interesting. She comes off as Nesta-coded, but at the same time, she's trying her best to help Prisca get allies and win this war against Regner. Even though she was one of the Queen's ladies, she feels like her own person with her fire magic and her hiding and getting messages from the Queen so she can help Prisca. And just like me, she's wondering what's the Queen's endgame is, because it's like she's doing what she's doing in book two, but more careful for some reason.

Hopefully we find out what it is that the Queen wants, what are the consequences of Prisca's thing that happened at the end, and will this family come back together to finally kill Renger? Those are the questions in my mind as I start the next book in the series.

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