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2.5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

Kira North hated Christmas.

Kira's twin sister has married and left to live overseas, as someone that has always depended on her sister's more level-headed personality, Kira feels extremely adrift. After watching a bunch of homesteading videos, Kira gets it in her mind that what she needs to do is buy a farm and with a trust fund just sitting there, well, a Christmas Tree Farm is purchased. This is third in the Dream Harbour series but each book works as a standalone, the tying thread is the small-town and friend group that flutters in and out of whoever the main characters' book is at the time. I read a paperback copy of this and there was a map of the town, which was fun to see and imagine all the characters going to and fro shops and businesses. Kira gets paired up with Bennett, series readers will remember him as the brother to a past lead, he's in town for vacation and to get his dating life in order, no more fix-it women. So, we have a determined to make it her on her own for the first time in her life and a will explode if he doesn't help, couple.

When she lifted her eyes to his, he was still looking at her like he had plenty of ideas on how to keep her warm.

If you couldn't tell by the title, this works super well as a seasonal read, snowball fights, Christmas festivals, stroopwaffles!, you're probably going to want to lean into those feelings as the actual plot was a bit slow going. Kira and Bennett meet and have instant attraction right away but Kira's a grumpy gus who does not want to give into her attraction as she sees that as her going back to her old ways. Bennett has a bit of that as well, he was burned bad by an old girlfriend, he actually moved from the East to West coast for her only to be told, he was too boring for her and then to be used a periodic desperate grab when she got lonely. He's working to shore up his defense for women who only use him. He never builds up too tough of a wall against Kira but he does get his feelings hurt after they have some bedroom scenes (some spice heat to these scenes) and Kira still tells him she doesn't want him, for some later in the book angst. Kira, exhaustively, ping pongs hot for Ben and doesn't want to lean on anyone.

Lumberjack fantasies that Kira didn't even know she had rushed into her head.

This was pretty low angst but at over three hundred pages (to me, this easily should have been two-twenty-ish) there wasn't a lot to keep this going, the relationship issues were draaaaaaaaaaaaged out. There was also a little bit of mystery thread, the farm Kira bought is rumored to have treasure or a body!?, buried on the property, it's what first gets Bennett out there continuously, friends/townspeople pressure him to go search for the body so the new gal doesn't find it and get scared away. I don't know, this mystery thread gets brought up and then, just about, completely ignored for the majority of the book, only to be kind of brought in with some found letters and then secrets revealed in the epilogue.

He wanted to confess that all he wanted for Christmas was her.

The page count was way too long on this for me, making the story feel dragged out, Kira ping ponged too much, and the mystery thread wasn't invested in enough. It was fun to visit the town again, see past couples, and experience some festive vibes.

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

Seduction is all I've ever known. I am made for it. I have destroyed lives with it. I never wanted to.

The Legend of Meneka is a reimagining of Hindu mythology where much is told about Sage Vishwamitra, Kaushika in this tale, but not his famous love Meneka, giving the author room to breath new life into the story. I went into this having heard of celestial dancers and the name apsara but definitely not a solid base of Hindu mythology. I think this helped in making it a brand new, fresh interesting story and hurt with me having to take it slower as there was a good amount of new terminology and ideology for me to take in. There was a glossary of terms in the beginning that was helpful to refer back to but I think the first half pace may have felt slower to me because of my lack of knowledge.

This place, this mission---never have I been so vulnerable, so powerless.

We come into the story as aspara Meneka is seducing her mark, a queen that has been slowly moving away from worshiping Lord Indra. He's the deva (diety) of Amaravati (heaven) and needs worshipers to fuel his strength. When someone threatens that resource of power in the mortal world, he sends one of his immortal asparas to seduce and negate. Meneka is an immortal but very young, early twenties, and is emotionally tired of having to seduce, she wants to stay in Amaravati, to be near Indra, who she is devoted to but also Rambha, an aspara who was able to gain some freedom, doesn't have to go to the mortal realm to seduce, and that Meneka thinks she is in love with. Meneka makes the mistake of asking Indra for her freedom, he punishes her by sending her on a mission to seduce a sage gaining major power, Kaushika, and which three other asparas have failed. Thinking she'll get her freedom to stay in Amaravati and be with Rambha, Meneka portals to the mortal world to seduce Kaushika.

“That's what you have been taught,” Kaushika says. “But what do you think? For yourself?”

Once in the mortal world, Meneka discovers all is not what it seems and while trying to prove herself worthy to stay and study with Kaushika, in order to seduce him, she begins to question if everything she was taught in Amaravati is really true. This was a lot about self-discovery with religious questioning, what it means to be devout and to the whos, whats, and whys in the Hinduism world. This is all told from Meneka's point-of-view and why it feels more like a self-discovery story but there's also the friction with Kaushika. Friction because he's going against her lord, which will in turn destroy her home city, with her friends who are family, but also she finds that she is feeling seduced when she is the one supposed to be doing the seducing. The first half doesn't have Meneka and Kaushika really circling each other a lot in a romance way, he's off doing sage things and she's trying to tap into her own magic. When they start spending time together more, it was more lust between the two, with some emotion that could be said coming from Meneka for how Kaushika is trying to get her to realize her own power but while Meneka does get Kaushika to question and teach him some things, I'm not sure their romance felt moved beyond those lust feelings.

We are two opposites bound to each other in this game of mark and seducer, each of us taking either role, unknowing, unaware.

The ending gives us some reveals, with some surprising character desires/motivations, Kaushika's background and why he's on his mission to bring about Indra's doom, and brings in a climatic scene with the ultimate clashing between the mortals and immortals. As this is a duology, there wasn't a concrete ending but the story did deliver on how Meneka and Kaushika could have become intertwined, filling in the original legend. There was just a lot of Meneka self-discovery journey to wade through that I thought hurt the pace a lot, and the romance didn't quite shine through as much as I would have liked. If you're new to Hindu terms, mythology, just be ready to take this slower but you'll get a fresh story for your efforts, if albeit a bit slower going.

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

For the first time in years, Sirena allowed herself to make a request from the universe. “I wish I had a second chance,” she said.

Sirena has had the worst October ever, she's lost one of her jobs and did horribly at an interview for a chef position she's been trying to get back into ever since she left her job to take care of her grandmother. When a special tea grants her wish for a second chance, Sirena finds herself living October all over again and this time, she's determined to change all those mishaps into successes. Deja Brew is third in a series, but I haven't read the first two and didn't have much of a problem jumping in here. It's set in Freya Grove, a magical realism world where every kind of supernatural is present. Sirena's a witch, specifically a kitchen witch, and has lost her ability to cook. She's currently living alone in her family home, her two sisters seem to have moved on in life while Sirena's stuck. This second chance at October has Sirena making changes, taking the opportunity to have fun and find her spark again.

These feelings he had for Sirena weren’t a simple crush, it was something more. Something exciting.

While Freya Grove is Sirena's hometown, Gus moved there a few years ago and while they've danced around in each other's orbit, they've never really got to know one another. On the night of Halloween, Sirena had a moment with Gus and when she gets her second chance, she remembers him. Gus moved to Freya Grove to slow down and recuperate, he was tired of being the “Good-time Gus” magician on his family's reality tv show and when he gets his heart broken on tv, his marriage of convenience started to feel real to him only to have his wife serve him divorce papers, he needs to reevaluate. He works at the historical society now and can't believe how much it suits him. While he's a little apprehensive when Sirena comes to him to teach her how to have a good time, he doesn't want to just be about fun anymore, but he can't escape the feeling of deja vu and finds himself wanting to be around her. They strike a deal that he'll help Sirena have fun and she'll help him decipher a cook/spell book the historical society was just donated.

“There are some things you don’t leave up to fate,” he said.

If you're looking for something that felt very low angst with Fall festive vibes, this would definitely be it. I really loved the beginning of this, with learning about Sirena and her world, then the anticipation of her and Gus getting to know one another in a Fall setting. While they do get some open bedroom scenes, this was still more along the lines of sedate, almost too low angst for me. I really liked the first half of this but the second half seemed to drag on too long, there just wasn't enough happening for me, Sirena drags her feet way too much and for way too long on finally acknowledging and accepting that her and Gus belong together. After I thought both sides accepted being together we got a, nope not yet, and the story dragged from October into November and December. I think readers of the series might enjoy where the story meander to more, as past characters feature more in these later chapters but I couldn't help just tapping my watch and wanting Sirena and Gus to wrap it up.

“My soul has found yours across lifetimes and oceans. We tempted fate, and we’ve played with fire. We are destined for each other.”

Wanting them to wrap it up doesn't mean I didn't enjoy them together, I liked how they both felt stuck in life and were trying to find who they wanted to be and find their place in the world but there just wasn't enough tension to keep me locked in, this should have been a shorter story. I enjoyed the fun the two got to have together, game playing, but I missed some delicious tension at the end. However, if you're looking for something more lowkey with Fall additives, pumpkin spice, apple cider, candy corn coffee(!?!), set in a magical world, and a sweet couple that clearly belong together, this would be a great seasonal pickup.

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

She felt the stranger’s gaze tracking her as she traipsed through the woods.

On Ruby's walk home from her bartending job, she's felt a stranger's eyes. She's scared but also turned on. When the man steps out of the shadows finally, he's got glowing silver eyes and growls. Ruby's the “freak” goth girl in her small town and keeps to herself, so she feels it's on brand for her to not completely fear this stranger. It's when a wolf attacks her one night, another comes out of the woods to save her but ends up injured and she has to drag him home to take care of him, only to wake up in the morning to a naked man in the wolf's spot that Ruby starts to think maybe fear isn't a bad thing.

He’d spent the last five years wrangling that side of himself, denying that side of himself, trying his damnedest to act human, to be human. But lately, his control was slipping. Ever since she’d started walking through his woods. Her scent drove him wild.

I'm going to give it to you straight, by one percent a “cock is twitching” and depth is pretty much nonexistent, worldbuilidng or character wise. Ruby and Rafe's connection is based on finding each other physically attractive, she wears short skirts and red lipstick, he's growly and muscly and they turn out to be fated mates, relationship development done. Rafe hangs around to protect Ruby and her sister Lena that she lives with ever since Lena lost her job because of a sickness, that doctors can't figure out, which causes her to trance out. Rafe walks Ruby to her job sometimes, there's some side characters that are identified as witches, nymphs, and we get to meet Rafe's werewolf brothers, Theo and Knox. Lena's barely in the picture but she seems a big part of what is going to be a continuous thread throughout the series, she could be a seer, someone who can see the future.

Lena cocked her head, as if hearing something no one else could. “They’re coming.”

There's not much for setting, we're in the bar, the house, and woods at times and for lightly brushed in backgrounds, Ruby lost her parent's young and lived with her aunt, there's also her continuous thinking about how the town (which we never really see) thinks she's a kinky freak. Rafe gets more with flashback scenes to how he once fell in love with a human and how that blew things up in his pack life, fighting with his father and then the fallout that lead to him leaving the pack and living on his own. He's constantly thinking about how he's a danger for Ruby, not good enough for her, but not being about to stay away because of that pesky smell of her being his mate.

She was looking at him like he was a monster. Like the monster he was. He hadn’t wanted anyone to look at him like that again. Especially not her.

These two were a lot of dirty talk wanting each other, with some foreplay sex for the vast majority of the story, kind of confusingly, because of the vibe of what the story seemed to want to be, they don't actually complete the bedroom deed until at around 90% of the story. With the lack of story, this should have just leaned into the sexy times and let these two rip, but it almost had them acting more like late teen to early twenties in thought and action (Ruby's 25 and Rafe is 200ish yrs old).

She was in love with a werewolf. She was in love with Rafe.

After numerous going in circles of Rafe not good enough for Ruby, Ruby wanting to have sex with him, and talking about the danger Ruby could be in, we get some wolves attacking Ruby again. This prompts Rafe to take the plunge with Ruby because he realizes he does love her and can't let her go. After Rafe takes care of the attacking wolves, they spend a month having sex in the woods and then we get an epilogue that showcases Rafe's brother Theo and his “friend” Phoebe, who look to continue the wolves searching for the seer story thread. I really don't know what else to say other than if you're looking for a light character and setting Litte Red Riding Hood inspired story, Rafe says he's a furniture maker, so put on some Pony by Ginuwine and feel free to zone out read.

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

It isn’t easy being the first— the first Black woman to win gold, to run a hockey school, to be a professional hockey scout, to start a hockey non-profit that values Black women above all else. “Firsts” need the support and care of our communities. But by creating safe spaces where others can be vulnerable and honest, we give ourselves that same gift—and that’s a beautiful thing to behold.

With a title that I expected to deliver more of a scholarly tone, footnotes and the like (there is a Works Cited), Blackness Is a Gift I Can Give Her: On Race, Community, and Black Women in Hockey instead was a conversational piece about the author's fandom, experience, work, insight, and hope for inclusivity in the world of hockey. The beginning lays out how they came to be a fan of the sport and then how isolating it could be at times being a Black and queer person in that fandom. This had the author creating Black Girl Hockey Club, sending them down a road of creating space, connections, and opportunity for others to not feel so isolated.

Be a bridge to something better, and take care of the bridges in your own communities.

A lot of this highlighted the people working to make a difference, such as Kim Davis, Dr. Szto, Shireen Ahmed, Sarah Nurse, Erica Ayala, Blake Bolden, and Jashvina Shah, along with organizations, BGHC, Carnegie Initiative, Get Uncomfortable Campaign, and Hockey is for Everyone. Important names to get out there, as the book discusses, resources, information, and knowledge give people a way to reach out and connect. Relaying this information shows the work being done and how many kids and families want to give hockey a try but have no idea where to start. There's a lot of talk about community, whether in person or online but always addressing the importance of building it and relaying how the author has done it, helping with suggesting how to do it.

I am leery of anyone who would rather be blissfully ignorant than painfully aware.

The heart of the book was the relaying and sharing of experiences of players, parents, kids, and people that have a love of the game that the author interviewed, Joel Ward's thoughts and feelings about his mom will connect and hit hard with many. There's discussion of how colourism and ignoring intersectionality work to undermine efforts for inclusivity and an ending chapter that speaks on how insidious white feminism is to efforts for equality and equity for all.

Black hockey players are few and far between at all levels of hockey, which means that equitable communities must be built with intentionality. Parents of Black children will seek these spaces out, but first they must exist.

The evolution of women's hockey is also discussed and how behind the NHL is compared to the NBA on reaching out. The burst of popularity of the WNBA in the last year shows that once afforded attention, money, effort, and time, women's sports can more than hold their own. The spending power companies let sexism and racism leave on the table never ceases to amaze me. I thought the first half of this was laid out perfectly but the latter second half before it wrapped up had moments of not held together as tightly, causing it to feel a little sluggish. Anyone can get something out of reading this, if you're Black, a sense of community, if you're white, a shake up to see outside of yourself, and if you're a hockey fan, you'll feel the excitement and love of the game and see all the ways the experience for all needs to and can improve.

2.7 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

“Things are not always as they seem, Piers. Remember that. A very little poison can do a world of good. It’s all about how you apply it.”

The Bane Witch was the story of a woman growing into her powers and learning to use them for the greater good. When Piers was little, she remembers her mother's fear when there was some incident with a man who died. Taken to doctors over and over until they diagnosis her with the eating disorder Pica, she feels compelled to eat poisonous plants, specifically pokeweed, Piers is then drugged to the point of not feeling anything to try and control the pica. When her stepfather, who she never liked, dies and then her mother commits suicide, she's all alone, except for a vague memory of a great-aunt who came to visit them once, before her mother chased her away. Determined to make a life on her own, she becomes an interior designer and marries a man named Henry. In little, almost unnoticeable ways, Henry begins to control her, then comes the violence. Off medication now, Piers' senses are showing her that Henry will not only kill her but other women in the future. Thinking the only solution is to fake her own death, she does just that and takes off to find the mysterious great-aunt.

She smiles in the soft light. “We don’t fear men in this house,” she tells me. “Men fear us.”

This story, pretty non-stop, discusses and shows violence against women and girls. Told, mostly from Piers' pov, there's her thinking about and recounting the violence Henry has committed against her (physical and sexual), her fighting against an attempted rape, thoughts and scenes from a serial killer, and stories recounted to her from the venery (a coven of familial witches) about why they killed their marks. So while this story is about a group of women who have magical powers to use their “allure” to draw abusive men to them and then use their poison eating magic abilities to kill them, the author sure leaned into recounting, describing, and go over and over what evil acts these men commit. This is probably a mileage will vary, and while I understand fictionally serving the story, the tone and way these awful acts kept getting descriptively written out, over and over, started to give me the feeling of desensitized true crime and faintly, horror movie torture porn creeping in. It was a lot for this genre of story and I wish we could have focused more on the victims or venery members.

The hunt is beginning, and my prey is out there, hunting me in return.

Some of this was Gone Girl-ish with Piers faking her suicide and we get a pov from one of the detectives that is working her, initially, missing persons case. It was brilliant how Piers planned everything out and getting to see the detective work through the clues. The other half is Piers learning about being a bane witch. Her great-aunt Myrtle works to train her after the venery of thirteen females, all related to Piers, mostly want to kill her off because they don't trust she won't get them exposed somehow, but with the matriarch behind her, Piers gets six weeks to prove she can successfully become one of them. Her magic has picked a serial killer that has been operating in the area and there's some thriller mystery as the two circle each other. There's a little romance thread with the sheriff and Piers, and while we get some emotional background on the sheriff, he's not completely a flushed out character. They spend some time together, have two quick kissing to door slammed bedroom scenes, and then it's “I love you” time that I didn't really feel.

“[...] You either live as a bane witch, or you die as one. There is no in-between.”

This had a tendency to meander and rehash enough that I do think the pace suffered at times, Piers could get ad nauseam back and forth over her bane witch powers, accepting and using them. The ending gave us final clashes and Piers coming into her own, along with a death that was brushed away pretty quick taking away it's emotional impact. The repeated bringing up and descriptive violence against women and girls wasn't a good feeling experience for me though, it's always tougher for me in fiction to strike that right chord, and it caused me to miss some celebrating in what the bane witches were doing. However, this did have a solid ending of where Piers was going to go in life and I liked that ending for her.

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

I feel like I know what a percentage of the reviews are going to be like for this, “This could have been an email”. BUT, hear me out, if you're going to buy this book, buy it right now. This is for all my Gothic atmosphere reader friends, read this during the months of late August through December first. Is it 384 pages of set-up that could have been condensed into a pre-series novella? Probably. BUT, it is dripping in such delicious Fall/spooky season atmosphere, that I reveled (ok, a little after the midway point before the ending ramped up, I maybe felt it drag some) in the story. Moning was atmosphere-ing and crafting for that rent that was due and I was completely transported. I know it's not how publishing works but I would have loved this published September first and then the second immediately available October first, because, hold my hand, this ends on a big cliffhanger.

From the ashes of my mother's fiery grave, a wild thing had arisen.

With any Gothic atmospheric story worth it's salt, there's a spooky house, and our lead character, the story is mostly told all from her point-of-view, has just inherited one, with conditions. Readers meet Zo as she's begging for a job, after having lost another due to having to call in sick to take care of her mother. Her mother has cancer and since it's only been Zo and her mother all her life all the care falls to Zo, they've been on the run since Zo was fifteen with her mother claiming Zo's father is after them. We get a little clue that Zo may have some magic to her, insight into feeling something is very wrong, the house she was renting burned down, with her mother in it. Before she can even really process that, she's notified of the inheritance and abandoning Indiana to try and start over in Divinity, Louisiana. There, the townspeople all seem to act odd around her and she learns that in order to inherit the House at Watch Hill and the 140 million (!!!!) estate, she'll need to live in the house, alone, for three years.

Home to three centuries of secrets, blood, and lies, the mansion on the hill was a dark, slumbering beast.

There's more will restrictions and hoops for her to jump through and she starts to clue in that some very weird things are going on. It's a lot of searching/wandering around the house and secondary characters acting shady, the attorney that almost seems fatherly towards Zo but won't spill his secrets, the mechanic Devlin who acts protective and attracted towards her but seems to be holding back, an owl that seems to understand her when she talks, and her bestfriend from highschool who is suddenly saying she needs to tell something very important that Zo's own mother kept from her. You're going to need patience and want to sink into the atmosphere if you're going to enjoy this. For my romance friends, there's some will they/won't they tension between Zo and Devlin and when Zo first arrives in town, she hits the sheets with someone she meets in a bar (the man introduced himself as Kellan, then we learn later, last name MacKeltar, yes I screeched), so possible love triangle on horizon, but she's pretty strong with Devlin in this.

And I was a witch.

As I mentioned the latter second half definitely ramps up with action and answers, there's another mysterious pov (Alisdair) that pops up every once and a while in the book and we get, a small, idea about who they turn out to be. It's pretty obvious throughout that Zo has some sort of magical abilities, with ominous outside characters swirling around her and her trying to figure out if they are friend or foe. You're going to get the set-up for the lore of the world, Highblood and Royal families, dark and light witches, warm and cold vampires, shifters, and the mysterious grey witches to ground you in the new series world, along with really getting to know Zo. What you'll also get though, is not much story movement, it's vast majority set-up until the end, and a big cliffhanger. However, this was dripping in delicious Gothic atmosphere that would be absolutely prefect for the spooky season.

3.7 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

“And as far as second dates go, getting engaged is unique.”

Ever since her father died three years ago, Lexi has felt like her life has been on hold and she's been trying to catch her breath. A high-school track star who got a full ride to college, she had to drop out a while to help her grieving mother. Working two jobs and selling her dad's business has finally got her caught up on the bills, leaving her just enough to pay tuition on the three classes she needs to graduate at twenty-five years old. Life is starting to settle until she runs into some old high-school friends and doesn't want them to know Alexandria The Great is waitressing. Lexie suddenly finds herself “dating” the cute and flirty customer who turns out to be Will, Seattle's most eligible bachelor and the man who just might be able to get her to risk her heart.

No strings. Just a break from regularly scheduled programming.

This turned out to be a super cute and sweet “fake engagement” but not dating romance. I'm an angst monster but I appreciated how, even though Lexi's mother and herself to a certain extent, were still dealing with grief, it's more towards them finally being able to breathe through the loss. The majority of this was getting to watch Lexi and Will sweetly fall in love and it was so enjoyable. Will grew up rich, with his grandfather's business but he's sick of his mother pushing society women on him, he finds Lexi's realness refreshing and I thought their chemistry was evident in how they played off of each other. The first half of this had me grinning and getting that warm feeling in my heart as Will tries not to push Lexi too hard, she wants to keep things casual as she thinks her life is too busy for her to take time for herself, thinks she's not good enough for Will, and after seeing how her father's death wrecked her mother, is afraid to let herself love. Will, for his part is instantly charmed by Lexi and is trying to keep the outside forces, his family, gossip papers, at bay so that he can get to know Lexi. They were pretty much together from the beginning with Lexi's reluctance having her drag her feet a bit.

Will’s gaze was locked on Lexi. “Lexi.” Despite the chaos swirling in her head and her gut, she took a moment to drink him in. She hadn’t imagined those gorgeous, intense eyes or the wide set of his shoulders. He looked like GQ personified in his dark suit, lightly pin-striped tie. His hair was a little mussed from the wind and she had vivid images of mussing it another way.

I loved the first half of this but the second started to pop in too many tangents, this was at it's best when Lexi and Will were together. Will had some family business drama (the merger with the bad reputation son felt useless after it fizzled out so much) and family relationship drama that helped flush out his character but I still don't know if I felt he was a completely filled out. He was the sweet and perfect prince for Lexi, which usually feels cardboard cutout but he worked for me in this story. Lexi got a bit too stretching out for page count sake mulish in the second half and I could feel the story pace losing me a little. I wish we could have seen these two be more physical in the bedroom, the scenes are fade-to-black-ish, as I think it would have heat things up but this was steady in it's sweet vibe.

Maybe that’s what was missing from his life: something real.

The later second half gives us a quick third act breakup with Lexi deciding that telling the truth is the only way she'll be able to move on and give the romance a real chance and has her and her mother finally talking things out. Will also has a moment with his family (his mom and dad did a little too unbelievable 180 for me) and creates a romantic moment to fight for Lexi. The secondary characters were all great in this, Lexi's mom, friends, and sisters, I wouldn't be surprised if this was turned into a series. A little too filled with tangents second half but a Cinderella-ish story that was sweet and had me loving how the romance simply felt good to read about. Lexi and Will had chemistry, they genuinely liked and enjoyed each other, gave us fun scenes, Fall seasonal vibes, squee feelings, and delivered a happily ever after epilogue.

2.7 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

Devil wants me in his belly like a wiggle worm.

Evil in Me started off on a fast chaotic note, Adam is trying to fight the voice in his head telling him to kill. He's powerless as he watches himself burn down a synagogue and stab the Rabbi and his wife to death. Readers are let in that it's a ring that has clamped itself onto Adam's finger and is feeding him these urges. As Adam hacks off his fingers trying to get the ring off, it just keeps spider crawling back onto another one until Adam takes his own life. The story then jumps from 1951 Brooklyn to 1985 Enterprise, Alabama and twenty-three year old Ruby.

“I am Lord Sheelbeth...your savior, your master.” The flames flared as she spoke.

One of my favorite parts of this story was how the author took the time to develop the supernatural background. Taking from religious mythology and giving it some spin, Brom gives us the ring's story. It's from a time when gods ruled and Lord Sheelbeth was in her heyday, until the Baalei Shem cut the ring off Sheelbeth's finger, cut out her eye, tied her to the ring, and imprisoned her in a hell. While Sheelbeth can weave urging magic into songs sang by the souls she has taken throughout her life, that are manifested as worms in her belly, she can't force anyone to act on these urges. This is done by Beel, a shedim (one of god's unfinished souls), who Sheelbeth had previously imprisoned and can possess the body of the ring wearer, controlling their body. I wasn't well versed in these religious stories, so don't fear if you aren't either, I had no problem understanding everything. We get povs from Sheelbeth, Beel, and later another demon, Vutto, controlled by Sheelbeth, to expand their characters and even though they come from a hell, don't be surprised if you start to feel for them.

With the beginning giving us the introduction to the ring, it sets-up a great foreboding feeling as we get to know Ruby. She's on her last week of community service, stopped taking her medication for bi-polar, and just trying to white-knuckle it and not lose it over how everyone aggravates her. Listen, she had some legitimate reasons to. When she heads over to Mr. Rosenfeld's home, the same last name of the previously murdered Rabbi, you know things aren't going to go well for her. Sure enough, the ring ends up on her finger and then we're on a ride to save her life. Josh was the Rabbi's brother and manages to give Ruby a heads-up on what's happening, even manages to douse the ring in red powder (angel's blood) to cloak Sheelbeth's power, while they try to find a way to get it off Ruby's finger. While the ring is cloaked, Ruby is still possessed by Beel, but he's been looking for a way to get from under Sheelbeth's control and helps as much as he can with finding a way to break the ring's grasp.

I got . . . bored.

Help is to be found in Atlanta where Josh knows a Dr. who specializes in ancient Hebrew mythology and theology. There, they learn that if Ruby sings a song from the heart, with the help of many souls, they can compel the ring off. Which is perfect, because Ruby used to be in a punk band and her ex-bandmate just happens to be in Atlanta. The second half gives us ghosts, demons, murder, redemption, and a serial killer. I wasn't really a fan of the Richard serial killer addition, his pov and addition felt clunky added on and honestly the story would have been better without it, wanted kick him out of the band. Along with Richard, Ruby's almost step-father had a story arch that made me think there can be too many musicians in a band, Ruby was the lead singer and could carry this story without those two.

The ending was a wild ride and had some of that chaotic punk music feel but like Ruby's band The Night Mares, this story needed a drummer to anchor it, Ruby had enough characterization for lead singer and Sheelbeth and Beel easily could have anchored but they got pushed and rushed aside too much by those characters I wanted cut-out; the story threads were riffing all over the place without a solid connecting feel. This was a supernatural story that had horror, punk music and satanic panic '80s highlighting, and heart from some unlikely places, fun but off the tracks at times. (The author also did a really cool collaboration with a punk band, The Maxines, to produce some of the original songs created in this, make sure to check those out!)

3.4 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

No one noticed that Cordelia moved in unison with her mother. No one ever did.

When a Sorceress Comes to Call was a historical magical realism story about a coming of age girl gaining the strength to fight back against her mother. Cordelia is fourteen years old and having stopped attending school years ago, only gains a sense of normalcy when a local girl Ellen can randomly meet up with her on one of her rides. Cordelia begins to realize that having a mother that is so controlling, not only of her thoughts but through what Cordelia calls “obedience”, where her mother actually controls her body, is not normal. It's when Cordelia gets a painful realization of betrayal that the only other friend she thought she had, her mother's horse Falada, tells her mother everything as her familiar and her mother does something that shines the light on what a true monster she is, that Cordelia begins to fight back, with some help.

Fear took her suddenly by the throat, a formless dread with no name, no shape, only a sense that something was wrong, something terrible was coming this way.

I thought this was a little less eerie than What Moves the Dead but you'll still find gruesome animal body horror, magic, supernatural elements, and thriller aspects. This was mainly told through Cordelia's eyes and the creepy tension and fear she feels from her mother was woven in strongly throughout the book. Once of the most powerful scenes for me was when Cordelia learned of Falada's betrayal. At this point, he's been her rock and the only one that seems to give Cordelia strength and when she lost that I hurt so bad for her and felt the numbness this gave her. (I must have some residual horse girl leftover from childhood because I refused to stop thinking that Falada wasn't on the side I wanted them to be for an embarrassing long time) We get a different pov when Cordelia's mom decides it's time to get a new benefactor, after she deals with her old one in a gruesome manner, and sets her sights on a squire a few towns over to marry. The squire's spinster sister Hester comes into the picture and with a little bit of magic herself, she senses right away that this new woman is “Doom”.

My mother is a sorcerer.

Around the midway point, Cordelia confides into Hester her fears of what her mother is and that she needs to be stopped; after what Hester has felt and seen, she doesn't need much convincing. The second half brings in more characters with friends of Hester that she writes to, under the guise of a house party, but really she's calling for reinforcements. Along with friends, she invites Richard, her old lover and the man that once asked her to marry him. Through them we get a little tiny romance thread that I enjoyed with their second chance romance and Hester finally mature enough to decide love is more important than letting the glare of societal expectations rule the day. Hester's more mature pov paired with Cordelia's youth, delivered a well rounded hitting all those emotions story.

And part of her— a tiny part that she had never quite lost— wanted to be there and wanted it all to be true so that her mother would love her and maybe things would change.

The ending delivered a, kind of quick, magical explanation (hitting the right “notes”??), along with the story's continued message of “water, wine, salt, and holy ground” dramatic end. There were winners, losers, and probably a lifetime of trauma from what was witnessed. The story was an enjoyable ride with it's really likable characters, a great seasonal read to pick up.

2.5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

What was a hero's purpose after the villains were vanquished?

This Will Be Fun was a fantasy story about the emotional cost to saving a realm. The story starts from Galwell the Great's point-of-view as he's in his own head watching his three friends the night before they take on the dark powers Fraternal Order in a final battle. There's his sister Elowen who has Heart magic (ability to read people's emotions), and his friends Beatrice, who has Head magic (can “visit” memories), and Clare, a mercenary who keeps silent on what his magic is. They've been battling to save the realm of Mythria and it's the night before they reach the capital Queendom, where they'll hopefully rescue the land and the princess Galwell is betrothed to. After we get this quick introduction to the world and characters, the story then jumps ten years.

Fame, and guilt.

With alternating chapters from Beatrice, Clare, and Elowen's pov, readers learn what happened that final battle and the emotional fallout. They're heroes for saving the realm, celebrated each year with The Festival of the Four, but they haven't spoken to each other since that night ten years ago. Elowen keeps herself isolated in a tree house, Beatrice married a noble but is currently getting divorced, and Clare travels around the realm taking all the lauding the citizens want to heap on them. It's when the princess they saved is finally getting married that they must come together again. By thirty percent they're all together again, with added reformed assassin Vandra who now works for the princess. Beatrice's guilt, the horrible fight that broke up the friendship between Beatrice and Elowen, and the love that has been buried under hurt and anger between Clare and Beatrice bubble around them and keep the relations tense. When they get to Queendom and realize the princess', now queen, fiancé has been kidnapped, they realize they'll have to do one more quest.

It was amazing how she'd helped save the entire realm and she'd come out of it as nothing but a loser.

The searching for the fiancé sends them all out to travel around the mid-way point of the story, which I was kind of glad because while I was interested reading about the deep turmoil of what these characters had been through, it honestly got a bit slow and repetitive as the characters sat in their emotions. I think the lack of more solid character development, we get such a brief first introduction to them, and the immediate plunge into “I want to shun everything and everyone”, kept me from really getting into the characters; I didn't know them enough yet to feel for them.

Being together was only a reminder of who they'd lost.

As they travel, it's Clare and Beatrice, Elowen and Vandra reaching and pulling away from each other for two second chance romances. I felt like the issues between the two did some repetitive saying their issue until suddenly, abrupt 180 into physical scenes. I missed more of seeing and feeling a working through to get to that awesome fireworks moment, there wasn't enough of building up for payoff, for me. The romances didn't quite deliver what I wanted and while the worldbuilding started off intriguing, it never developed enough for me either. The magic people are endowed with is relayed but not really woven into the world, plus Clare's magic reveal just felt quickly thrown out. I didn't mind the modern meshing, coffee shops, soap operas, face-timing, Uber, added in with a bare Medieval cloaking but I can see this as a your mileage may vary additive; kind of gave me movie A Knight's Tale vibes.

“Each of us needs to face the Order.” He stared right into Beatrice's eyes, reminding her of their conversation. “For peace.” He looked next to Elowen. “For revenge.” He rounded, facing the queen. “For Galwell and for Hugh.”

The first half felt dragged out to me and then the later second half ending felt rushed from jumping to resolution to resolution with half-explained, developed, magical moments (Sword of Souls, Beatrice's “new” magic) and romances that felt abruptly come together, I wanted more developmental work to feel those emotional payoffs. The characters were thirties and while I didn't get YA fantasy vibe, I'm not sure I felt their maturity either, the lack of character development. Even though there wasn't enough delving into the characters and world building for me, if you're looking for a first half that addresses hero emotional fallout and a second half that has them quest traveling, with magic and some cloaked modern additives, this would be a lighter fantasy to think about.

2.7 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

The girl from the library was a de Moray. The sister of Ranulf de Moray. His enemy.

There was something absolutely comforting to me when I read that first excerpt of fairy tale, a tricorn was settled, and a greatcoat draped a set of wide shoulders. The first half and middle had me imagining a patchwork quilt where the design wasn't quite right. The recapping of the continued storyline of the first two books is done well enough but I still think you might want to brush up on the cold war between the de Moray's and Greycourt's. There is a lot of family member names thrown throughout and it could get confusing if you're not sure who is who. What started everything was Ranulf de Moray was accused of killing Aurelia Greycourt, causing him to be beaten, lose a hand, and now live as a recluse. The stars of this book are Ranulf's sister Lady Elspeth de Moray and Aurelia's brother Julian Greycourt. Elspeth and Julian meet in the Duke of Windemere's library and from there attraction and circumstances have them invading each other's orbit.

His every expression, every little move was studied, picked apart, and held against him until Julian had learned to hold himself still, to express neither joy nor sorrow nor anger. He’d buried all his thoughts and feelings so deeply inside himself that sometimes he thought he’d lost them altogether.

After the drama of Ranulf and Aurelia, the siblings are left with the fallout. Julian ends up being sent to live with his uncle, who he's the heir, with his brother Quinn and mother, while his sisters were sent to a different uncle. Elspeth, with her two other sisters, get sent to live with an aunt, who then dies and they get taken in by the Wise Women. If you read the first two books, you'll remember some of the story around the Wise Women, a group whispered to be witches but really just a commune of women living on their own terms. At this point, there is a sort of civil war going on between the Wise Women and Elspeth is determined to find a diary, rumored to be hidden in a Greycourt library, of one of the first Wise Women to help her advocate for them to get back to their original intent. Julian has forever been looking for ways to put a stop to having to bend to his uncle's evil machinations and finally gets word that his mother wrote her own diary hidden in the margins of a book and what she wrote will destroy his uncle. To the library, everyone!

He drew her to her feet with no effort but then pulled her closer so that they were nearly embracing. She could feel his breath on her lips when he spoke. “I hope, for your sake, that I can trust you.”

With Elspeth's background of growing up in a matriarchal commune, she doesn't understand or want to adhere to societal norms, and Julian's cold childhood and being taught to hide his feelings for fear his uncle will go after whatever he loves, you can see the grumpy/sunshine forming. There's also the added “unnatural” desires Julian has, he's a submissive in the bedroom. Fortunately, “I've read about it in a book” Elspeth takes to dominating him like a duck to water and the second half gets to deliver on one of Hoyt's strengths, hot bedroom scenes. There was also the added danger of if there are one or two assassins trying to kill Elspeth or Julian or both.

Dear God, Elspeth de Moray was dangerous, but not for the reasons he’d first assumed.

Now, with all the patches I've laid out, you can see how this would be a complicated quilt design, and the flow kind of took a hit at times. There came a point where there were a lot of familial and Wise Women characters to keep track of, the Wise Women storyline I was finding hard to care about, and the evil uncle stayed a little too much to the background for me to really feel the danger. The romance felt like it got boxed in a bit and came down to Elspeth instantly just knowing how to dominate Julian, which did provide some hot but I wanted more of the emotional outside of the bedroom to feel the love building and growing. But, if you're a library scene person, you'll get plenty of that here.

“I’ve tried resisting you,” he murmured, his voice deep.

The ending gave us a betrayal by Elspeth, which felt a little forced because I think the groundwork was there character wise and how she thought/felt about Julian to trust him more, to deliver the black moment. Things move kind of quickly from there and the wrap-up felt a little everything working out with a bow and then a very last second danger moment (seriously, my Kindle said 93%) that delivered an ending that felt somewhat abrupt in action but character wise, emotionally was alright, plus there was a “one month later” little epilogue to give us more of a solid closure. There are plenty of siblings left for their own story, added clues to further some story plots, and dangling threads with the Wise Women and Aurelia and Ranulf storyline to keep this series going. It's a series you'll have to want to stay on your toes with but Hoyt is usually worth it, in interesting plot (albeit disjointed this time), a setting, Georgian, that doesn't get published as much, and hot chemistry.

3.5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

She’d recruited the sexy, town fisherman to help her have an adventurous end of summer/end of her twenties and she was suddenly feeling as though she was in way over her head.

Hazel has worked at the same bookstore since the end of her sophomore year of highschool, about to turn thirty she's suddenly realizing that she's never done anything wild and crazy. When books start popping up in her bookstore, dog-eared (the horror!) and highlighted lines such as ‘Come with me, lass, if you want an adventure.’, she decides it's time to be a little reckless and follow the clues for a sort of scavenger hunt of adventure. Add in Noah, the new cute fisherman in town, who agrees to help her on the hunt and Hazel's about to have the summer of her life.

He was looking at her like he knew that she had taken that book home and read it cover to cover and that the pirate she was picturing looked nothing like the one on the cover...

The Cinnamon Bun Book Store was a cute small-town read about two people who thought they weren't good enough, only to discover they're perfect for each other. Hazel has lived in Dream Harbor all her life and feels boring, as she's the stay at home snuggle with a book over going to a party kind of gal and Noah never finished highschool and feels like his boat tours isn't successful enough compared to his family's seafood company empire. They're both attracted to each other, but Noah doesn't feel good enough for Hazel and Hazel thinks the younger by five years Noah is too hot and cool for her. As they spend time together with the clues leading them to getting tipsy in a blueberry patch, kissing on a Ferris wheel, and getting caught up on a boat in a storm, they realize they actually have things in common and genuinely like each other.

The cutest guy in town had given her his sweatshirt and she could barely stand it.

Everything is kept pretty light vibes in this, Hazel and Noah's self-confidence are their main hurdle, coming to terms her path in life is perfect for her and someone as good-looking as Noah would be attracted to her and Noah realizing he is smart and responsible enough to hold his head up around his family and friends. This had a little bit of a Jill Shalivs feel to it, with the big friend group and series baiting characters, cute moments, and plenty of bedroom scenes. I thought the second half started to feel slower as their self-esteem issues seemed to get dragged out for more page count. The ending had three scenes where I was like “Ok, this is the end. Oh, wait there's more”, and it kind of killed some of those finalized HEA moments, but maybe others will enjoy the more than one HEA.

Maybe she hadn’t needed to change her life, maybe she’d just needed to change how she saw her life. How she saw herself.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read, I just think it needed to be wrapped up a bit quicker. If you're looking for sweet, sexy, and a small-town ripe with singles that have potential future book hook-ups written all over them, this would be a great pick-up.

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

What if her days of failure with her family, the monotony at work, and the regret in her peaceful moments were only half her life? What if, at night, she could go to Ireland and do all that she wished, without having to face who she had been, or who she had become.

With the, what might of have been regrets of Jane Austen's Persuasion, a touch of scifi for some speculative fiction flair, and a few elements that reminded me of how I felt about unanswered/left unexplained things in the tv show The Leftovers, The States pulls you into troubled Tildy's life. She's technically an heiress because her family owns a cosmetic empire but that's slowly crumbling as her father makes one bad business decision after another. Knowing her family the way she does, she's the middle child of three girls, she's set up a separate life for herself as a data scientist. When she gets called in by her father for a family meeting, she learns he wants her to give him her shares of the company, sell her grandmother's land in Ireland, and move with the family from New York to Florida. The mention of the land in Ireland drudges up her memories of the childhood love she left behind and we learn why she's so melancholy.

Someone like him wouldn't want someone like her, she told herself. The someone he knew her to be.

On the heels of learning that her family is going to have to finally deal with their dwindling funds, she comes across an advertisement for a sleep study, run by an old college friend. With a combination of a drug and a sort of brain wave monitoring skull cap, she'll be able to lucid dream for hours. They're looking to help people with things like PTSD be able to visualize ways to help themselves but Tildy wants to live the life she gave up eight years ago. It's a little tv show Severance but Tildy remembers her dreaming, even if she starts to use it too much and her sense of real and fake starts to erode.

This was her fifth session, and a sense of menace was now unmistakable.

At around 350pgs long, this had moments of feeling like it lit fic meandered, Tildy's feelings about not being able to fully turn her back on her family and punishing herself for it when she chose them over her Irish love, start to feel overly mewling and repetitive in her self-flagellation indulgence. A new character gets introduced about halfway through that brings in some more family backstory, with some mystery/thriller vibes and forces Tildy's hand to finally make decisions. The scfi comes in with an AI named “Russell” that was created by her mother, who died, and is supposed to help the family with life, decisions, and, I guess, a way to feel still connected with their mother. It was one of those The Leftover elements that I felt didn't quite get flushed out enough, along with how Tildy starts to use the lucid dreaming machine too much and the dreams start to have a feeling of menace to her. The Persuasion connection is pretty loose and just about Tildy and the boy she left behind in Ireland, Aidan, and how she regrets it and how he made good.

What if she couldn't tell the truth from the lie any longer?

This had some slice of life to it, so you're going to have to be ready to sit for more of a long haul. A little into the second half, Tildy starts to grow some backbone and she moves to Ireland and we get her having a little struggle of distinguishing real from the dreams as some fate has her running into Aidan and the friends she'd included in her dreams because of her cyberstalking of him. There was some hinting at possibly some more scifi or fate, as Tildy learns that there was some truth to her dreams. I thought the ending felt a little quick as Tildy suddenly gets decisive after three hundred pages of ineffectual bemoaning; not sure there was enough shown of Tildy building up the strength for this sudden action. Overall, I was captured into Tildy's life but her woe is me attitude was laid on for a long enough time that it did get tiring, the scifi lucid dreaming addition kept me going but some of these elements didn't feel flushed out enough, but the little bit of romance did deliver a pretty sweet ending. This was a little something different story that you're going to have to slow down for, be willing to not get all the answers, but at least give you a little smile at the end.

2.5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

Ophelia was now the eldest Grimm. A dead mother made her much more than an orphan.

Phantasma opens with Ophelia's mother dying in the night, causing Ophelia to hurry and perform a ceremony where she is transferred her mother's magic. Her younger sister Genevieve, has always wanted to leave their family necromancy business behind, resenting how it tied Ophelia to Grimm Manor, their home. However, Ophelia won't turn her back on centuries of family history and intends to take over the business of helping people communicate with the dead. Until bankers show up and suddenly they only have a few weeks to pay off a severely due loan their mother inexplicable took out, before they lose Grimm Manor to the bank. Ophelia senses that Genevieve knows more than she's telling and when she leaves a note saying not to worry and she'll be back in a couple weeks, Ophelia just knows Genevieve has entered Phantasma, a haunted mansion just arrived in New Orleans, and plans on entering herself to find Genevieve.

For as long as she could remember, the voice had been there, in the darkest corners of her mind, telling her to walk through certain doorways or her entire family would perish.

This started off with a really cool concept, a traveling haunted mansion run by devils where contestants can enter and try to make it through levels based on the nine Circles of Hell, where if they are the last person standing, they'll receive a Devil's Grant (basically a wish granted). There's explanation of paranormal hierarchy, with Ghosts, Apparitions, Phantoms, Devils, Specters, and the like, which I thought was going to lead to a pretty detailed structured rich world. Ophelia even enters the mansion pretty early, around 15% to get the story rolling right away. However, I kind of found a lot of the elements added to create atmosphere ended up feeling a lot like window-dressing, leaving me ultimately disappointed in the lack of depth.

The golden bauble had been in her family for generations, enchanted with a powerful magic that bound it to its wearer.

This takes place in New Orleans but as the vast majority of the story is inside the Phantasma mansion, you won't get the feel for the city. I don't remember the time period being explicitly mentioned but with Ophelia riding in carriages and a motor vehicle being a sensation, along with her dresses and male attire of vests mentioned, it seems like it's supposed to be Victorian era. But the vernacular feels pretty modern, ex. - “I fucked his best friend on the back of a float”, “Who in the unholy fuck is knocking on peoples’ doors this early in the morning?”, and “For fuck’s sake,”. I'm guessing the clothes are Victorian era to help set the Gothic tone this was mentioned as having but Gothic stories are all about atmosphere, usually a big chunk created from the restrictions of the time, and well, language plays a decent part of helping to mesh the time period with the reader and I can't say I felt the Gothic atmosphere at all, the clothes were window-dressing.

Phantasma. The Devil’s Manor. A place often spoken about in whispered rumors and haunting cautionary tales in the dark.

The romance comes in when a Phantom named Blackwell, who Ophelia actually met before entering Phantasma, makes a bargain with her, he'll help Ophelia get past the levels if she helps him find a heart and key, what he told her needed to be set free from Phantasma when they first met but can't remember saying. Blackwell has no memory of existing outside of Phantasma but picks someone every time the mansion starts it's games to try and help him get free. A locket Ophelia wears around her neck that has been passed down through generations of women in her family warms when it's around Blackwell and she takes this as sign to trust him. She's also pretty physically attracted to him. You probably can tell where this is leading and a little before the half-way point, we start to get “Good Girl” scenes. The dirty talk was there but the emotion was not for me, there just wasn't enough emotional or relationship depth developed and as such, all those physical scenes may have used the trendy hot words but they were window-dressing and I found my eyes glazing over whenever the clothes came off.

“Ophelia,” he repeated, tasting every syllable. Her name on his tongue sounded like a wicked prayer. “You are exactly the person I’ve been waiting for.”

Along with being a lifelong romance fan, I've been a lifelong horror fan, why I was so excited for this but while the levels would occasionally have some gory descriptions of deaths, window-dressing in place of any actually feelings of horror, tension, or fear. This felt more New Adult to me, in regards to maturity of characters and tone and I'd put Christopher Pike books ahead on the feeling horror scale. The levels Ophelia has to complete don't last very long and while we get to know some other contestants and devils, they're more blip on the radar secondary characters. As we raced through the trials when it's time to complete them, lingered on Ophelia wandering through the mansion trying to find what Blackwell's looking for, and hopped from physical scene to physical scene between the two, I felt the middle second half started to feel stretched out.

A deep sense of dread began to sink into her gut that being within Phantasma wasn’t going to be the thing that broke her.

The ending really rushed Ophelia's and Genevieve's plot, but delivered on answers. Ophelia learns some family secrets and what Blackwell's story really is, and while it is pretty obvious (I would say blindingly obvious and Ophelia should have realized much sooner) what the answer was to what connects and could solve Blackwell's issue, it was an enjoyable plot thread. Once Ophelia and Blackwell figure out some things, the ending again feels a bit rushed as it jumps to give readers a quick look at where things are and are headed. One element that I thought worked really well and want to mention is Ophelia's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, since this was a paranormal book, I was wondering where this element was headed. Ophelia hears a “Shadow Voice” in her head that causes her to have to do things in threes, otherwise the voice says her family will die. The story showed how this tormented Ophelia and the struggle of how living with such a form of OCD can effect people and I thought how Ophelia battled it showed a care and respect for this aspect of her character.

While I found a lot of elements to be window-dressing and the romance didn't have the depth to deliver the emotional connection I like to feel from my romance leads, others who like a little descriptive gore without the deep emotional horror feel, trendy dirty talk scenes, and a New Adult vibe, might want to give this lighter horror and romance mash-up a try.