Book Review: Death Overdue: A Haunted Library Mystery by Allison Brook

Death Overdue by Allison Brook
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book when I read it as an audiobook. I gave it three stars because I felt like the narrator took me out of the story for just a bit, and the story was so cozy and sometimes a bit boring. I think if I read it physically or on my Kindle it would've been better and I would've enjoyed myself. But anyway, this one is about Carrie Singleton, who moves back to Clover Ridge and is living with her aunt and uncle, and is also working at the local library. When she's called into the head librarian's office and is offered a new position at the job. When she was about to open her mouth to turn it down, that's when someone in her ear told her to think about it. When she did, that's when things started to change in her life.

After a day of thinking about it, she accepted the position of Head of Programs and Events, and thanks to the ghostly help, along with gaining a rival, Carrie is starting to enjoy living at Clover Ridge. Her first event is an ex-cop named Al Buckley, who claims that he has new evidence about the murder of Laura Foster. During the event, Al got poisoned and died, thus leaving Carrie feeling sorry for herself for even having the event.

While she was feeling sorry for herself, she teams up with Jared Foster to find out who killed Al and his mother, all the while she's settling down, getting a cottage that's not that far from town, almost working with Evelyn, the ghost who haunts the library, to find out who did it and why. When she found out who did it at a house party, I was kinda surprised, but at the same time, I wasn't. I thought it was Ryan, Jared's brother, because of how uncomfortable he made me and Carrie. Dylan was just...Dylan, to be honest.

But if I read this again physically, I think I would've enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. The voice just took me out of the book, and the ending shocked me a little bit.

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Book Review: Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco

Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Everyone who read this book said they either get hungry because of the food descriptions, or the action in it. BUT NO ONE WARNED ME ABOUT PRINCE WRATH. Nope. Not a one. In my head, Wrath is Wrath from the Black Dagger Brotherhood. But this Wrath? Mr. I Have A Golden On My Arm, I Am Basically War, has the sass of Hellsing Ultimate Abridged!Alucard with the elegance of the Castlevania Alucard? All y'all fired. I'M SO MAD THAT EMILIA DIDN'T WIFE THIS MAN UP IN A HEARTBEAT. I loved this book so much-the magic, the summoning, the demons, all of it. It was so much fun, and the shocking part about everything was Prince Envy being the villain. I didn't even pick him up as the villain, but he was just *chef's kiss* beautiful in the book.

The food in the book made my mouth WATER. I wanted to sit at the restaurant and eat all that good food-that's how much I loved it. I even cracked up when Wrath discovered the magical dessert of cannolis before they were attacked by the demon.

The Prince's powers and how each of them uses them were very interesting. I wanted to know more about the rest of them, but I don't think I wanna know more about Lust's powers, because I felt like he violated Emilia to forget and to have fun without her consent-that's the only thing I didn't like about it. Other than that, I loved how Greed's power worked and how Envy worked. I also liked how the magic worked in the Kingdom of Italy. I wasn't even expecting the Church (did I? Did I though?) or the priest that both Emilia and Vittoria knew would betray them. I was honestly expecting something else.

I think my favorite part about the whole entire book was the summoning part. I really, really enjoyed them summoning part. And the mystery of what happened to Vittoria was very spot-on. I was following along with Wrath and Emilia to find out who did it and why they did it. I cannot wait to dig into book two to read more and cross my fingers that Wrath and Emilia gets together. If not, then I'M WIFING UP WRATH.

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Book Review: All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

All Systems Red by Martha Wells
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I first read Murderbot in May, I felt like I wasn't going to like the series because of the narrator-he was too clunky in my opinion. But when I finally read it-OH MY GOD. I loved it. Every bit of it. Murderbot was the funniest character I've ever encountered in my whole life, and on top of that, I loved the action, I loved how Murderbot interacted with the people they were looking after, and I also loved how sweet it was each time Dr. Mensah cared for Murderbot.

I would die for Murderbot because of how they were blunt, straightforward, and actually caring at the same time, even though they don't care about anything, and all they wanna do is live their best life watching their serials and not give a damn about pretty much all humans.

I also liked how serious Dr. Mensah was throughout the whole entire thing. She was smart and straight to the point, and she made sure everyone was alright during the entire mission. I really liked the fact that she was also trying to understand Murderbot when they didn't want to know anyone at all. But their friendship bloomed into a friendship of understanding and the ending...it did gut me though because I wasn't even expecting it.

I thought that they were going to stay with them once they were brought from their contract, and they just up and left and left Dr. Mensah the entire recording of their mission, which made me sad a bit, but it's okay, because it left me wanting more and I need to know more. I can't wait to read the next book to see where this takes me, because its SO GOOD.

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Book Review: Snow and Poison by Melissa de la Cruz

Snow & Poison by Melissa de la Cruz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a Snow White retelling that was okay. I liked how the story was-it was entertaining and enjoyable. But when it came to the execution, it was a couple of chapters too long. I did care about the characters, which was good, but when it came to the retelling, it was alright, nothing to run home and tell Mama about.

I did like the relationship Snow White, or Sophie had with her stepmother. I was honestly waiting for the stepmother to hate Snow White and go evil, but instead, she was always helping Sophie, and even helped her when the things she thought she did were evil was actually helping her. Which was both shocking and really good in a good way. I really like that dynamic, and her father is kind of helping her, but at the same time, he really doesn't help her at all. How he died was sad, but it helped the both of them get stronger, in my opinion.

Prince Philip...eh, he was okay. He wasn't the kind of dude I would hang out with, but I can see why Sophie fell in love with him. Placing the story in Bavaria was pretty interesting, and it set the tone of how the story would be told. I think I would like to see more of Bavaria, but then I realized as I kept reading...I didn't give one flying flip about Spain. I don't know why, maybe it was King Ferdinand doing all this horrible stuff to break Philip and Sophie up. Maybe it's because of how Sophie had to escape from his men-I don't know, but I felt like close to the ending it felt flat.

I did like the children in the book and how they all grew to love Sophie when she taught them how to read. All of them were so cute and adorable, and I'm glad that Sophie and Philip adopted them.

All in all, this was an okay retelling of Snow White. Nothing to come home and tell mama about, tbh.

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Book Review: The Coven by Harper L. Woods

The Coven by Harper L. Woods
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Yes, I gave this book a five star. But the more I marinated on it, the more it's just a simple two-star star book-for so many reasons.

1.) Williow Medizza was a flat, boring character. I have never read a one-dimensional character like Williow before. Ever. She was off being a badass without caring about anything else. Her magic was cool, but everything else about her made me want to just skip her whole entire chapters completely. She honestly made me want to go to sleep because she just...didn't want to do anything that would help pertain to the book or the plot.

2.) Literally, no magic was in this book.. The only magic that was in the book was Willow's and no one else's. No other witchy things happen in the book and I got upset because there was no magic in it whatsoever. It was like the author forgot about the magic part about a school, there was no group of girls going outside and doing magic-none of that. I wanted to learn more about the other witches and the magic system, and...and it just wasn't there. No magic system, no explaining the different types of witches and their magic, no nothing. It felt like it was bare and nothing happened in the magic that screamed magic.

3.) The mystery was okay. It was alright, nothing to run home and tell Mama about it. I wish there were more figures out than Willow trying to fix everything and such. The investigation was bland and I didn't have time to find out who did it and why. Why didn't she go deeper? Who was doing all of that to these students?

4.) I only cared about Thorne and no one else.. Thorne was the most interesting character I've ever read about, and I honestly cared about him. He can say terrible things to me and I'll thank him for it and ask him what's next. Thorne was such an interesting character that I loved so much that he's one of my book boyfriends. But everyone else can go away and I'll never see them ever again-just give me a Thorne-focused book and I'll be happy as a lark reading all about him.

5.) There was only one class in this book-no other classes. If you're going to write a dark academia-type novel, write a novel where the characters go to classes and see how they feel during those classes. Having one class in the book makes me feel like no one else goes to this school, and they only go to this one specific class every day. I found that not realistic, and on top of that, there was no information about the school or how the school functions with the Covenant being skeletons and things like that.

I don't think I'll pick up book two, even though the ending shocked me. I wish this book gave more than it did, without falling flat for me.


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Book Review: A Dynasty of Monsters (Warhammer: Ange of Sigmar) by David Annandale

A Dynasty of Monsters by David Annandale
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book...blew my mind.

Lauka Vai can step on me and I'll thank her for it.

I was expecting this to be the thing I need for this autumn season and this blew all my expectations out of the water. It was dark, it had the vampires in them who were monsters but were the most human out of all of them, and it also shows how someone who believes so hard in their city becomes a zealot to do whatever they can to keep the so-called "monsters" out of their city, to protect the people who can't fight at all but want to protect them.

I was mad, nodded at some parts, gasped at some parts, and also went "daaaamnnnn" in my mind as I read this. I learned about the Avengorii and how Lauka Vai makes sure they don't succumb to their bloodlust as they help the people of the Colonnade fight the beastmen and their people. The only that that irritated me throughout this book was the fact that the bard was the villain this whole time, and no one knew about it, only his brother did. I did like that in the end, he got his just desserts, and I also like how the councilor tried to save her city, just tried. But after learning the whole truth about her city, and how pure they wanted to be and betraying the Avengorii and Lauka Vai, that's when she just snapped and killed almost everyone that she thought she called friend and family, and also that Vash fellow was just so annoying. I'm glad he got his as well.

My favorite character has to be Kavak. He reminded me a bit of Alucard from Castlevania, but at the same time, he saw the evil going on in his old city and wanted to save them, but then he saw that his brother, his own flesh and blood, was doing all of this...well he wanted nothing else to do with him. I also loved Lauka Vai and how majestic and elegant she was. She didn't even bat an eye at the people looking at her because she was different. She was the perfect commander to lead her Avengorii and her Vengorian Lords to war. That was so good and fun to see and I want to know more about Lauka Vai and the Avengorii in more books.

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Book Review: This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron

This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book pleasantly surprised me. I wasn't expecting to love it, but when I did get down to the nitty-gritty and get past the plant parts of the book because, to be honest, I was getting bored of them and was about to go to sleep with all the plants. But when you bring up Greek Mythology, that's when you got my attention. I really liked how Briseis took care of the plants and explained what they were. I also really liked Karter up to the end of the book. And Marie might just be one of my favorite characters because of the fact that yes, she's way older than Briseis, but at the same time, she's smart and she kinda of reminds me of Undead Murder Farce's Aya Rindo-without the not having a body part.

The way the magic system works in this book made me think of the D&D druid. She's growing flowers, including poisonous ones, and she does her research on who Medea was and why her family is a descendant of her and always prays to Hecate. I also like Briseis's mothers and how they were always protective of her, though I really didn't like how her mother passed. I really didn't. I was also kind of suspicious of Mrs. Redmond and how she was so nice, but in reality she wanted the heart for herself for a really stupid reason, to be honest. Just because you're a descendant of Jason doesn't mean you can just get it and you can walk among the gods. Nah. Don't work that way.

Kaylnn Bayron's writing pulled me in, and I'm so glad that I read this book. I was scared a little bit that I wasn't going to enjoy it, but the more I read it, the more I did, and I liked how the plants and the Secret Garden and the mythology all seamlessly combined to make a really good book. I would like to read more from this author as I expand my reading and find out what I like and don't like.

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