Publication Date: October 2, 2018
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 5 stars

Falling in love with a story is instinctive for me.  Whatever the highs and lows of the book's writing and mechanics might be, I will blindly fall head over heels for it if it touches my heart.  

Enter Evie and the plot to Kill the Queen.

The beginning of this novel is doubtful.  We spend so much time, over the course of a couple of chapters, moving through the minutiae of Everleigh's day to the point of thinking “Is this really necessary?”  You're nearly dulled into listlessly flipping through the pages, figuring this is going to be the pace and tone for the rest of the book.  

And then you're thrown smack in the middle of a massacre, the plot explodes into action, and suddenly you can't read fast enough so that you can devour every single little detail.  It was an ingenious play.

From that moment on, you rush to catch up with the goings-on in the story.  At every twist and turn there's a new spark of excitement that keeps buildling up to Evie's big moment at the close.  It's satisfying to see her grow into herself and evolve from the puppet that she had been used as at the start of the novel at court, to her own person while she delves into the world of The Black Swan, the troupe of gladiators who become her family.  

Gladiators are something that is so strongly instilled in the culture of Bellona, and I was delighted by the fact that rather than glaze over this, Jennifer Estep took her time to not only bring it to the forefront, but give it the attention that it deserves.  The fight sequences are not overly drawn out, but they are very nicely described.  These are a people who fight, enjoy it, do it well, and the instruction that Evie receives while in this band of people is very well depicted.  As is her growth and talent, something that we witness in the final and blaring encounter between Evie and Vasilia, our story's murderous antagonist.

Through it all we have the sizzling attraction bewteen Sullivan and Evie to deal with.  While sometimes this can be a rather distracting thing in a novel that is not mainly romance, it was properly secondary to the plot in this one.  It's both great and frustrating, because you want these two to get together,we know that they need to get together, but it never happens.  It is so satisfying when an author waits past the first book in a series to get the lead couple (I hope) to come to terms with how they feel—Feyre and Rhysand, am I right?  The intensity of the moment is so much more powerful and organic that it makes it well worth the wait.

But past them, the rest characters are a joy to encounter, from the gentle strength in the gladiator Paloma to the sickening machinations of Vasilia, Nox and Maeve.  These characters drive a fun and engaging story, even during the moments when you're sitting at the edge of your seat hoping that one of your favorite ones won't be killed off.  

It's been a treat to visit the world of Crown of Shards, and I cannot wait to travel to Andvari with this lot and see what else is in store for them.

Synopsis: Before the massacre at Nariin, Enebish was one of the greatest warriors in the Sky King’s Imperial Army: a rare and dangerous Night Spinner, blessed with the ability to control the threads of darkness. Now, she is known as Enebish the Destroyer―a monster and murderer, banished to a monastery for losing control of her power and annihilating a merchant caravan.

Guilt stricken and scarred, Enebish tries to be grateful for her sanctuary, until her adoptive sister, Imperial Army commander Ghoa, returns from the war front with a tantalizing offer. If Enebish can capture the notorious criminal, Temujin, whose band of rebels has been seizing army supply wagons, not only will her crimes be pardoned, she will be reinstated as a warrior.

Enebish eagerly accepts. But as she hunts Temujin across the tundra, she discovers the tides of war have shifted, and the supplies he’s stealing are the only thing keeping thousands of shepherds from starving. Torn between duty and conscience, Enebish must decide whether to put her trust in the charismatic rebel or her beloved sister. No matter who she chooses, an even greater enemy is advancing, ready to bring the empire to its knees. (Amazon)

Publication Date: February 11, 2020
Genre: Fantasy / YA
Rating: 4 stars

This was wonderfully surprising, especially because when I dove for this book all I noticed was the synopsis. I completely missed the part stating that this is a retelling of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which is one of my favorite classics. So...bonus.

It took me a few chapters to really get into the swing of this book, but once it picked up, I was hooked. The story is interesting, with some intriguing characters and a driving plot.

I really enjoyed Enebish, and I tend to be really critical of female MC's. I usually find them lacking in some way or annoyingly overcompensating, but I greatly liked the way that her character shifts, grows, changes. The one time where I found this to falter was near the end of the story when Ghoa tricks her, captures her, and she's forced to betray Temujin. She went from someone who was making up her mind, gaining her strength, growing into her power, to such an easily manipulated and cheated person. On one hand, it makes sense, because Ghoa is a weakness for her, but on the other hand I thought that this could have been done a little better. Enebish could've fought that pull a little more, shown more struggle.

And Ghoa herself was a great antagonist. There was always something there, from the start, that had me mistrusting her. But you try to accept her, you try to look past peeks here and there of someone who is not what she claims to be. Her full reveal was not so much an eye-opener as it was a pleasure to behold—letting that wall down and allowing the reader to really see her for who she is. So damn good.

The plot twist took me by surprise. I was concentrating so hard on letting the story take me where it might, that I completely missed the hints of what was afoot. Who Temujin really is, who the Worm really is! Who so many others truly are. It does make sense, and it's such a greatly crafted plan, that I cannot wait to see how Enebish and Serik—whom I adored from the first glimpse of him; thank you Addie Thorley for writing a romantic interest which does not need to be the bad boy in the story...they're fun, but this is a nice change of pace—are going to pull out of this one and take the rest of the series from here.

I was very glad that Serik found his power (a power in a range of magic that I wish would have been explained and fleshed out more), and it's certainly going to come in handy, but I also found it a little too convenient. That always nags at me in novels, but, still...kudos to my boy.

So far, there's a lot of promise in this book. I can't wait to see what the second one has in store.

Publication Date: March 3, 2020
Genre: Fantasy / YA
Rating: 3 stars

Havenfall combines two of my guiltiest reading pleasures, fantasy and mystery, to deliver the story about a girl tasked with the job of overlooking a safe house between magical worlds during a time of strife.  

In theory, the story could be exciting: humans and two of the fantastical worlds that have an alliance come together once a year to celebrate and discuss matters of their worlds so that they may continue to live in accord.  The innkeeper, our lead's uncle, is usually the one who oversees everything.  But after the door to one of the other worlds opens again, which has been sealed for years due to a war that broke out where lives were lost, death comes knocking again and the innkeeper is left unconscious and unable to continue overseeing his duties.  Enter Maddie, who has dreamed her whole life of having this role, feels that this is what she has been working for, and while nervous, believes herself to be ready to face whatever Haven needs in order to keep others safe.

It's an entertaining read, and I greatly enjoyed the mystery reveals that occurred.  But the story fell flat for me.  While it aspires to be rousing, it doesn't reach that potential.  The whole thing delivered just a little monotonously, and I felt that most of the characters were sorely underdeveloped save for Maddie and maybe Taya, to some extent.

One of the elements that I always delight in, especially in fantasy novels, is the antagonist.  There is so much room in this genre to make the “bad guy” anything you want him/her to be.  The Silver Prince fell so short.  Not only do we only see him a handful of times, but we never get to know him.  What motivates him and moves him, other than the need to take over the keep and reign?  Why does he want this?  We're not given enough information, and while a handful of his actions are imposing enough, and he manages to brainwash Maddie fairly easily, the strength that he could have as a being is just not there.

Maddie is very believable in the doubt that she has in herself to do her job as innkeeper.  She knows nothing of what needs doing and has no problems reaching out to others for help.  She does have a ridiculously easy gift of trusting the wrong people, however, and keeps mentioning this throughout.  It's almost as if she tells the audience “Most people I trust lie to me, here, let me show you,” while it continues to occur again and again.  It's repetitive.  Almost everyone in this book has something to hide, and a secret to reveal.  It happens so often that we keep doubting whoever appears next in the novel.  It's fantastic for what the author accomplishes as far as the story's mystery, and yet it's so ironic that our lead doesn't seem to catch up.

While there is a clear love triangle playing out between Maddie, Brekken and Taya, I was so glad to not see the usual stereotypical tug of war that tends to happen.  Love triangles are one of my least favorite tropes in stories, because usually they're overdone.  Sara Holland wrote it well, showing the intense attraction that is to be expected between Maddie and Brekken with the years that they've known each other and the bond that has been growing between them since they were children, as opposed to her newly developed closeness toward Taya.  

Havenfall itself...  I definitely got the sense of the town, and it did—as Maddie points out at one point in the story—feel like an old western type of world in which to live. It's still charming, well run down, full of vegetation and woods nearby.  It does a really nice job of conveying how isolated the keep is to the rest of town and how suspicious and full of gossip others are about the place.  

The ending, as I have been reading too often with books lately, came far too swiftly and easily.  There is going to be a second book, surely, especially with the way that Havenfall closes.  But we could have taken a little longer to see the conclusion of this one develop and play out.  More time, overall, was needed with this book to expand.

Publication Date: March 3, 2020
Genre: Thriller
Rating: 4 stars

We've all felt a little lonely.  We've had moments where we don't or can't relate to others, or don't know how to reach out, and just crave that human connection.  Now, imagine you think you have finally found someone who can offer you that—someone who makes you feel warm and happy, and loved.  Then they pull wool from over your eyes and you realize that they've been using your weakness against you, so that they can not only manipulate you, but violate every aspect of your private life.

That is, in a nutshell, the premise for You Are Not Alone, and it was every bit as twisted as you can imagine.  Which means, in short, that it was as delightfully entertaining to read about as one might expect from a Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen's thriller.

Shay Miller opens the story for us, and we can't help but feel sorry for her almost instantly.  This is a young woman who has horrible prospects not only in her professional life but in her personal one as well.  Her close guy friend of years, whom she's in love with, has a girlfriend and she's now, for all intents and purposes, the third wheel.  She can't get out of the rut of her temp job while seeking a better position.  She soon needs to move out of her current apartment to give the love birds more room to themselves.  She doesn't really have a lot of people in her life that she can turn to, and she has just witnessed the suicide of a stranger.

Enter the fabulous, glamorous, beautiful Cassandra and Jane Moore, sisters and co-business owners.  They happen upon Shay's life when she's at her lowest, and tuck her under their wing, seemingly helping her improve herself.

And they do, at the beginning.  They give Shay a gorgeous makeover, they help her find a new apartment, they encourage her in landing a fantastic new dream job, and they are a big part of Shay's more positive and confident outlook in life.  For all intents and purposes, the Moore sisters have had an ideal influence over Shay.

Too ideal.  

One of the things that I enjoyed most in You Are Not Alone is that the reader sees Shay as such a needy and almost pathetic person at first.  She is so desperate to have friends that she will do anything that these two women ask of her—and at times outright tell her to do in their bright and cajoling (a.k.a. manipulative) manner.  Shay sometimes goes above and beyond, researching people and looking into their lives to a level that seems almost creepy.  She does this without ill will, she's actually a rather kind and sweet person, but it's this very thing that makes Cassandra and Jane exploit her.

As the exploitation begins—alongside the other women in the “power” circle of friendship that the Moore sisters are a part of, excluding Shay—we see the tables turn.  Shay was never the villain in the story.  Shay just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the level of animosity that these women spew at her in order to use this poor woman for their gain, is sickening.

It is excellently described.  The characters come alive while we see their wheels turn and the Moore sisters continue to corner Shay, even while in turn Shay starts to shift and show that she has more than one dimension.  She's not just the wallflower that she appears to be at the beginning of the story.

The process of storytelling is a slow burn, but the narrative is so fun and engrossing that it seems to fly by.  The more that you know, the more that you want to know, and you are so enraptured in what's going on that you don't really expect the “big reveal” until it's crashing down on you.  

I did find that some of the characters were a little weak, and as far as how easily brainwashed they were when one realistically considers the level of camaraderie between them (like Jody with the Moore sisters).  And taking into account how much time the authors took to explain the backstory of almost any “important” character, and how much time we spend in the present moment of the plot, the end was slightly rushed.  While it was satisfying, it didn't linger as much as I would've liked.

This is, however, still a delightfully enjoyable mystery.  And we have been given a lead in which quite a few people will find a kindred spirit.  It's cleverly done.

Publication Date: March 1, 2020
Genre: Fantasy / Romance
Rating: 1.5 stars

Kerrelyn Sparks' books have come across my different book-related feeds for years.  I've had a few of them in my TBR list for just as long.  Seeing How to Love Your Elf's ARC available seemed like the perfect chance to get to know her writing and read—what seemed, and I hoped would be—a fun and exciting story.

I was sorely disappointed.

I'm going to first mention the two points that made me somewhat enjoy the novel: the Woodsman had sex appeal (at least beginning to mid-way through the story), and there were a scattering of amusing moments sprinkled about, which is always a bonus.

And then I had to deal with the rest.

Sorcha is our lead.  She has red hair, which is very obviously made to state that she has a fiery and independent, headstrong personality.  This is pushed on us again and again by how often she tries to fight the Woodsman's will.  I was never able to pinpoint what her actual personality is.  She was dull often, she spent 90% of the novel pining and obsessing over the Woodsman's looks, and she would attempt to show sparks of life then go back to moving with the flow of the narrative.

And then the Woodsman...  We begin the story with a seemingly strong character, decisive in nature, bold will...that goes out the window the moment that he lays eyes on Sorcha.  He is so amazed by this incredible soldier-woman he sees while she attempts to escape from the enemy that he, a Wood Elf with an affinity with trees, almost falls right off of the one that he is sitting upon when he sees her.  And as soon as he has the convenient chance to get his hands on her (because of course, as tends to happen in these books, some feisty physical response from her to deny his help makes him have to somehow touch her), he goes on to describe her as...

“...Green eyes.  As green as the newly unfurled leaves of an oak tree in spring.  Sorcha.  His hand flinched, still gripping her thigh.  She was different.  With her face turned up to look at him, the moon shone off her luminous skin, and a million stars sparkled in her eyes.

She was incredible.  Unique.  Her beauty paired with her brave fighting spirit made a combination that took his breath away.  How long could he hold her in his arms?”

They just met.  She is unique, her fighting spirit is already fully obvious to him, she is different from apparently any other woman that he has known before...and they just met.  Alright.

The pace of the novel itself is quick enough, the events themselves don't really play out other than to state facts a they occur.  In “big” moments, like a murder scene, or a battle, we spend a page and a half maybe stating who stabs who, who hits who over the head, who fires an arrow at who, who dies, and then we move on.  And I never quite understood the lay of the land.  I am aware that there are a handful of kingdoms, but (and this is nitpick-y of me, yet it nagged at me every time that it came up) the distance within the land of Woodwyn, for example, is never clear.  It takes these characters a day or two—sometimes less—to travel from one place to the next, on horseback, as if everything is within arm's reach.  It just sparked of unrealistic.

And one of the most irritating things about this book was Sorcha's way of speaking o others by referring to them as “ye” and then would switch back to “you” without rhyme or reason.  I did not understand it.  It trips you up mid-dialogue again and again.  

Most of this novel revolves around the two leads thinking of how much they like each other, how big their attraction is, and what they want to do with that attraction from the second that they meet.  And it's just forced without the buildup of a good intimate chemistry that sparks.  We barely spend any time dealing with the fact of who the Woodsman is and his history, the end of the story happens so fast and things are put to rest so very easily when drama should have actually been spent in those times.  

It was, overall, sadly lackluster.

Publication Date: January 21, 2020
Genre: Mystery / YA
Rating: 4 stars

I was nineteen-years-old when I read Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None for the first time, and I am eternally grateful to my uncle for suggesting it to me.  Since then, I recommend it to everyone who's a book lover.  I get mixed responses on that recommendation: “But I don't like mystery.”  Read And Then There Were None.  Trust me.  “The book was published so long ago, is it even any good?”  Read it (Also, why does the book's age matter?)  “Ugh, a book about people stuck in a house?  Does anything even happen?”  What doesn't happen in that house!  Read it and find out.  

No matter the argument, the novel is still worth the reader's time.  Even if it's just to experience the author's talent.

The Truly Devious trilogy brought to mind all of the cozy, warm, indulgent vibes that reading Christie's masterpiece gave me years ago.  Coming to the end of The Hand on the Wall was bittersweet.

Stevie Bell has joined the ranks of my favorite fictional characters.  Stevie, with her anxiety, and her obsession with mysteries and crime, and her ability to just zone the world out while she works a whodunit problem in her head.  She led this story so well, and seeing her during the last few chapters of The Hand on the Wall, among the others in that Great House, personifying her own version of the incredible Hercule Poirot to bring forth the culprit and present her case just made me...proud.  

Maureen Johnson's subtle little way of bringing together ten people and sticking them into a house in the middle of a blizzard while a murderer roamed free and they're cut off from everyone else outside of the school was the ideal ode to a classic.

From the get-go, we've wanted to know what happened to Alice Ellingham.  That has been everyone's goal—both those in-story and the readers'.  I wasn't surprised to find out what Alice's outcome really was, though it was still heartbreaking.  George Marsh's punishment did not come in the form of Albert and what he did to the two of them on that boat.  Marsh's punishment was in finding his own daughter.

There is so much sneaking, so many lies, so much weaving to get through so that one finds the truth.  But Johnson did a good job of slowly untangling the web for us.  That's why mysteries are so much fun: you start at the confounding problem laid out before you, and little by little work your way back to the beginning, learning all the facts as you go.

My only complaint from these novels, including the last, is that the pacing is now and again off.  Something detracts from the main story that leaves you thinking “Was that really necessary?”  In this one, it was the whole debacle with King.  It's a nice addition to the overall plot, and it ties up things with at least one character (David, in this case) but it makes you go over this hiccup mid-storytelling that interrupts the otherwise smooth flow.  It wrapped up well in the end, but the intrusion of it was not well-placed.

Characters are exceptional—I wish I would've had a Nate and Janelle in my life at Stevie's age—the reveal of our modern-day murderer was incredibly satisfying to find (although ever so slightly anti-climatic, again, I feel that this was due to pacing), and the setting...  In a story like this, setting is everything.  Ellingham Academy with its twists and turns, its history, and how far away from the rest of the world it is, could not have been a better choice.  It's a playground for a riddle of this caliber.

I'm going to miss these books, but it was well worth the wait to come to a close in this story.